Crazy Prayers
John 14:14–If you ask anything in my name, I will do it.
Psalm 139:4–Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, o Lord, you know it altogether.
Psalm 118:5–I called on the Lord in distress; the Lord answered me and set me in a broad place.
Sometimes we’re too careful with our prayers. We only want to pray for what’s possible. We limit our faith to believing for things that any human could accomplish without divine involvement. We want to pray sanely. Logically. Nothing far-fetched, too…crazy.
And yet God answers crazy prayers. They’re all over the Bible. Joshua prayed that the sun would stand still, which frankly, seems insane to me. But God answered that crazy prayer, and the sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. (Josh 10:14) Now that was a crazy prayer!
Jesus prayed Lazarus would come walking out of his grave, alive and well. And it…happened! (Jn. 11:1-44) Yet another crazy prayer…
Moses prayed the Red Sea would part so the Children of Israel could escape through it to the other side. (Ex. 14.) That was an even crazier prayer!
Thing is, we’re used to hearing these stories, and they seem, in a strange kind of way, “normal” to us. (Normal as in fairy tales, anyway…)
But when you think about someone actually praying and believing for things like these, they might actually seem kinda a little wacko. Very wacko, in fact.
Nevertheless, God did, and still does, perform wacko miracles for those with the faith, confidence, and abandon to presume He would do such things for them.
Truth is, God loves performing miracles, displaying His power, and most of all, helping us any way He can, even when all hope seems lost.
Back when I was a lot more foolish than I am today, I was driving way too fast down a muddy Oklahoma back road. Suddenly, quick as a snap, my car hit a rut and slipped into a four-foot deep ditch. The car never slowed, just continued flying like an arrow down that gully, bouncing up and down, rattling my teeth, shaking my skull.
The sides of the trench were too steep to traverse. So on the edge of panic, I simply released the steering wheel, hoping God would know what I meant, and called out, “Jesus!”
It was a clumsy prayer, a crazy prayer, even an irresponsible one. And it wasn’t even a question, really. It wasn’t really even a request; just an exclamation. But I guess what I was really saying was, in the words of the popular song, “Jesus Take the Wheel.”
But seriously, the whole thing was nuts. What was I expecting him to do, just pick me up and put me back on the road?
And yet God seemed to understand my crazy prayer perfectly, because he answered it in just that way. In the blink of an eye my car was back on that muddy back road, still traveling down it at full speed. With a sigh of relief I eased off of the accelerator, and drove carefully the rest of the way home.
It wasn’t the Red Sea, or sun standing still, but it was still a crazy prayer, and a crazy miracle. And I thank God I was just wacko enough to pray it, because God loves doing these kinds of things.
So don’t put God in a box. When you pray, pray your heart. Just open up and let her rip. Because simple, honest prayers of faith can sometimes generate crazy prayers, but they can produce crazy miracles.