If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to
all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. 6 But when he asks, he
must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea,
blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything
from the Lord; he is a double-minded
man, unstable in all he does.—James 1:5-8
Another problem in prayer is that we don’t really
believe that God can answer prayer. Very often in prayer groups I have had
someone ask me to pray for a cousin who has cancer, and everybody in the group
wonders if we should pray for the cousin in Indiana. We know, technically, that
God can answer prayer, and yet I think some of us at that moment really don’t
feel that God will answer that particular prayer. But what would happen if
someone entered the room and said, “Stop praying. I just want you to know we
got a call and God has answered our prayer”? Wow, what encouragement that
would be!
James says that if you doubt that you are going to
get an answer, you will probably get the answer you expected, which is nothing.
You will get nothing. Just remember, if you don’t have the faith to believe
that the woman will be healed, pray with the faith that you do have. Pray that
God would comfort her; pray that God would give her grace; pray that God would
be glorified in the situation. Some people don’t get what they want from God
because they ask, but they do not really believe. We need to be people who
believe.