MORNING MANNA. 2-16-22
THE TRAGEDY OF UNASKED PRAYER
“From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.” James 4:1-3
D. L. Moody was one of the giants of evangelism. In the age before modern travel and media, he was well-known and traveled across much of the world and preached the gospel to millions of people. He saw God work in great and mighty ways. Needs were miraculously provided and many thousands were saved. Yet later in his life Moody said, “Next to the wonder of seeing my Saviour will be, I think, the wonder that I made so little use of the power of prayer.”
The reality is that a prayer we do not pray will never be answered. There are times when God closes doors or changes our hearts and we do not receive what we originally requested. But those are not tragedies. The tragedy is when we are willing to fight and claw and scratch and do almost anything to get what we want—except pray. The Lord has graciously offered us the privilege of coming into His presence and making our requests directly to him, yet often we simply don’t pray.
So many of God’s children are struggling because of a lack of things that God promises to provide if we pray. Often people struggle with making decisions, despite the fact that God has promised wisdom. Often people go without necessities because they do not faithfully pray for daily bread. The lack that we endure because of our failure to pray not only damages our lives but it also undermines our ability to serve God as effectively as we should. May it never be true that we fail to receive what God has for us simply because we did not ask.- copied
David Stone
Lakeway Baptist Church
Humble, Tx.
