Prayer is a pathway into His presence. Let’s focus for a few moments on prayer and expectation.
This can be a complex subject for some and even a confusing one. You may ask when I am meant to expect God to answer, as I’ve prayed many prayers before and expected Him to do something, and it didn’t happen.
There is no set formula we can use that ensures an answer to prayer. It isn’t about getting the correct prayer password or how loud we pray. We could pray passionately, even with fancy words, yet none of this guarantees the answers we want.
I 100% believe we should be praying with expectation and faith but also that we are to be confident that God will always be God and always is good, even if something doesn’t work out how we thought.
That said, what is God looking for when we pray in faith? One thing, and an important one, is a true heart after Him:
1 Samuel says that the Lord looks upon the heart
Jeremiah 17:10, I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.
2 Chronicles 16:9, For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him.
So let us ask ourselves, very simply, is my heart right before God? When I pray, is my motive pure? Is my living right? Are there any sins I need to repent of? What does God see when He looks at my heart?
On that heart basis, another thing we need when it comes to prayer and expectation is to have confidence that God hears all of our prayers and will answer us accordingly to His will:
1 John 5:14-15 assures our thinking on this when it says, And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to His will He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of Him.
Okay, so we need right hearts and confidence that He hears us. Now, how does that work with prayer and expectation?
I believe it boils down to this. In any given situation, we need to believe God can do anything. Literally, He do anything. He can save, heal, deliver, and even bring someone back to life. But we also need to expect God to be God in every situation. Our expectation isn’t to be in what we want answered – the biggest expectation is to trust and allow God to be God and do what He can do. Should we pray expecting and believing every time?Yes 100%, but also trust that God knows and He sees the bigger picture.
One of the keys to seeing God answer more prayer is being so connected with Him that His desires are automatically on our hearts and minds, simply because we are dwellers in His presence.
Heavenly Father, teach us to pray. Raise our expectancy, give us faith and help our unbelief. May our hearts dwell in Your presence so that Your desires consume our hearts and become a reality when we seek Your face. Amen