August 20

“Jesus told His disciples that faith could move mountains and that whatever they asked in His name in faith would be done.  These astounding assertions from the lips of our Lord himself contain a deeper truth than the church has yet comprehended.”  Hannah Whitall Smith, God is Enough, 8/19

And 100 years later we still do not comprehend it.  This is the scenario I’ve seen far too often in prayer groups.  We ask God to heal/protect/provide as though we don’t believe He would otherwise.  Then when we aren’t healed, protected, or provided for we think we either didn’t have enough faith or that God didn’t come through for us.  Then we read the verse Hannah speaks of and blithely chalk it up to symbolism rather than a literal interpretation.  This is very damaging to one’s spiritual life.  We carry around seeds of doubt that keep sprouting at inopportune times wreaking havoc in our emotional life.  How much better it would be to take God’s word at face value.  I believe Jesus when He says we have not because we ask not or that we ask amiss.  Rather than asking for something that God has already promised which is to be with us always, we should be asking God for more faith to believe these promises and to live accordingly.  Then seeds of faith will be planted. 

“And this is the confidence which we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.  And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have obtained the requests made of him.”  1 John 5:14, 15