One of the prayers God loves to answer is when you ask him simply to be true to his promises. We see Moses frequently praying to God simply that he keeps his covenant with Israel.  Joshua based his confidence in the conquest of Canaan on the promises of God to grant victory. That’s why he marched around Jericho instead of attacking the walls.  

Eos fell in love with the mortal man, Tithonus, and asked Zeus to make him immortal. Zeus granted the request—with a catch. Eos forgot to specify her request as wanting eternal youth for her beau. So Tithonus did live forever but kept aging until he was so old that he couldn’t move or think and just lay still, babbling in dementia forever.

Another character, Chiron, learned from Eos’s mistake and asked for eternal youth and immortality, but forgot to include in his request immunity from pain. He was shot with a poisoned arrow that couldn’t kill him, so he endured the perpetual agony of dying without escape in death.

On another occasion, Midas was granted his wish to be able to turn whatever he touched into pure gold, and Midas immediately went to work creating a vast treasure of golden objects. But then he became hungry and sat down to eat. His food grew rigid and his drink hardened into golden ice. Midas realized he was starving to death and also that he would never embrace his wife or daughter again.

The fictitious gods of the Greek pantheon were unbelievably capricious and vindictive. The true and living God of the Bible is the exact opposite.

He tells us what to ask for, and even when we ask amiss, he grants us only that which is good for us and for his glory. And that is why the longest and most comprehensive Psalm in the Bible is all about how we can love God’s law. Today we examine another stanza from Psalm 119 that tells us how to know what requests to make of God.

8 elements common to prayers that God answers…

1. Education

Psalm 119:33 Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes; and I will keep it to the end.

If you ask God to make you godly, to teach you truth, and to grant you knowledge about him and his will and his ways…do you think he will answer that prayer? Of course he will. So pray, and then pursue that knowledge.

Read More