Wisdom Prayer

A part of wisdom relates to discovering what wisdom is and how to apply it.  One of the main purposes of Scripture and preaching is for the reader/listener to discover the route of wisdom and follow it in thought and application.  Wisdom is the route, not the end.  There is a wisdom route that guides a Christian to a loving, righteous, active, fulfilling, joy-oriented life.  Along the main life’s route there are stopovers to accomplish purposes and goals, and from which we gain additional directions and services that make the wisdom route of journey fulfilling and satisfying.  We begin the route walking so to pick up (gain information) slowly at first, faster later when we learn contexts.  Finding we are on the right road, we break into a jaunt, then a run.  At the end we are flying over the route to the desired haven.  (Isaiah 40:29-31)

It is good that Christians read, master, perhaps memorize, the Sermon on the Mount.  It is the only complete sermon we have recorded from Jesus.  It likely took him a full day of ministry to preach it in its detail.  We have his outline in Matthew, chapters 5 through 7.  He embellished the outline to his hearers during that day, and what we have is sufficient to accomplish for us what it accomplished for them so long ago.  We can read, over and over, and gain all that Jesus meant for the generations following that day on the mountainside.  We know from reading the gospels that he used portions of that sermon in other sermons, and in other places including conversations with his disciples.  He likely engaged a scribe with instructions to write down the basic ideas he would communicate that day.  Perhaps a disciple had enough skill to do it.  In some way Matthew obtained a copy and we have it in translation.  Read with insight and conviction, readers can touch sublime moments in the reading, and in the understanding guide themselves through the brambles that accompany life context and touch spiritual health.  (James 5:7-11)

Just one of many issues accented by Jesus is prayer.  He made clear in the introduction that what he had to say was direct guidance to those holding faith in God.  They were to pray in this manner, and he gave to the people what we now call: The Lord’s Prayer.  In that prayer so full of accents is included the phrase: Thy will be done.  That incorporates virtually everything that any prayer ought to seek to be accomplished. We already know that God is holy, and that holiness offers perfection.  We know that God’s nature is love and that with regard for all truth. We know that God will treat humankind as his creation, so to act in our benefit of that creation.  We know that God is triumphant against all negatives to his will and program, even instructing us how we can act to benefit by that omnipotence.  The observations may be multiplied in this vein.  So it is that when I pray in God’s will, and understand what I ought to be doing, I have covered the field.  Included in my faith context is the request to God that he will amend my prayers to fit his will and plan, if I have prayed amiss.  It is human then to wonder why we should pray at all, if we have made such a blanket prayer and that cryptically.  Because God’s will and plan have been set long before my involvement, and I agree with it to the point of worship that his will be done on earth as it is in heaven, what is left for a devout follower to do?  What is left is, in my view, the most important meaning for prayer, how to engage it, what to do about it, and its effectiveness.  If it is not effective we have a major waste of time. The foreknowledge of God factored our prayers into his plan and will.  That God functions on a different timetable than ours is obvious within the understanding of many themes.  There is an implication in Scripture that God acts with some independence from the natural timetable.  For this tension, and given the priority of God’s will, he offers us a resort to patience.  Two common words for patience appear in Scripture, one appears in largely human circumstances refers to forbearing, enduring, perhaps suffering in any delay or discomfort – so we simply take it for whatever the consequences.  The other is used especially for spiritual patience – waiting, with endurance and constancy, continuing, perhaps for a lengthy period, and all that with a cheerful hopeful spirit – with the assurance that God will manage matters in his context and preference.  Patience in the New Testament is tied to virtues of faith, love, and the context of victorious spiritual life – so to patience.  (Hebrews 10:36; Romans 5:3-4; Titus 2:2)  We pray for God’s will.