Praying with Confidence (Acts 12:6-19)

Acts 12:6-19

⁶ The night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries stood guard at the entrance. ⁷ Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him up. “Quick, get up!” he said, and the chains fell off Peter’s wrists.

⁸ Then the angel said to him, “Put on your clothes and sandals.” And Peter did so. “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me,” the angel told him. ⁹ Peter followed him out of the prison, but he had no idea that what the angel was doing was really happening; he thought he was seeing a vision. ¹⁰ They passed the first and second guards and came to the iron gate leading to the city. It opened for them by itself, and they went through it. When they had walked the length of one street, suddenly the angel left him.

¹¹ Then Peter came to himself and said, “Now I know without a doubt that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from Herod’s clutches and from everything the Jewish people were hoping would happen.”

¹² When this had dawned on him, he went to the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying. ¹³ Peter knocked at the outer entrance, and a servant named Rhoda came to answer the door. ¹⁴ When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed she ran back without opening it and exclaimed, “Peter is at the door!”

¹⁵ “You’re out of your mind,” they told her. When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, “It must be his angel.”

¹⁶ But Peter kept on knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished. ¹⁷ Peter motioned with his hand for them to be quiet and described how the Lord had brought him out of prison. “Tell James and the other brothers and sisters about this,” he said, and then he left for another place.

¹⁸ In the morning, there was no small commotion among the soldiers as to what had become of Peter. ¹⁹ After Herod had a thorough search made for him and did not find him, he cross-examined the guards and ordered that they be executed. ^[1]

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What’s striking to me in this passage is the reaction of the people gathered at Mark’s house to Peter’s arrival.  They didn’t believe Rhoda, and in fact accused her of being out of her mind.  What’s interesting about this is that the verse previous to this passage mentioned that they had been earnestly praying for Peter.  And now that their prayer has been dramatically answered, they are surprised and disbelieving.

Do I expect God to answer my prayers?  I should.  After all, He has promised to do so.  Not that He has promised to answer them dramatically as in this case, or on my timetable, or according to the implied instructions that I often have in my mind when I’m praying.  But He does answer.   The question raised by this passage is whether I am expecting an answer and whether I am looking for it.

I try to keep in mind when praying about events or praying for people that God is far wiser than I am.  If I can come up with a half dozen excellent ways in which my prayer can be answered, no doubt God can come with half a billion which are all probably better than mine.  I think that we sometimes miss God’s answers because we are looking for a specific solution. But since God’s view is infinitely longer term than ours, and His goals are not always the same as ours, and because He is always weaving lives together in carrying out His will, His answer will likely be something we hadn’t envisioned.

So my prayer today is for faith as I pray, that I might pray with confidence that God will answer.  I also pray for the patience and openness to earnestly pray ‘Thy Will be done,’ and so remain open to any answer God may provide.

 

What is the Word leading you to pray about today?

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^[1] The New International Version. 2011 (Ac 12:6–19). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.