Divine Wisdom Through Prayer

Why do you pray? What is your purpose, your goal when you pray to God?

Is there purpose in prayer?

One training I went to as a Chaplain had a Wiccan priestess talk about her religion. She started off by walking in a pattern on the floor while uttering some words in some language. When she was done, she explained that she had just cast a spell. Then she went on to equate a witch casting a spell with a Christian praying.

She told us that they are both the same, while done differently, they both had the same purpose and that was to get God to do what we need or want. In other words, her thoughts were we need to manipulate God or bend God into doing our will.

A sad note about this is many Christians would never say anything like this but at the same time this is exactly how they pray. They try to bend God into doing their will.

If some were honest they would change the Lord’s prayer to, Let me will be done on earth and heaven.

So, why do you pray? What is your purpose in praying?

Let’s look at the prayer of King Solomon to learn a little more about prayer.

1 Kings 3:6–9 NASB 2020

6 Then Solomon said, “You have shown great faithfulness to Your servant David my father, according as he walked before You in truth, righteousness, and uprightness of heart toward You; and You have reserved for him this great faithfulness, that You have given him a son to sit on his throne, as it is this day. 7 And now, Lord my God, You have made Your servant king in place of my father David, yet I am like a little boy; I do not know how to go out or come in. 8 And Your servant is in the midst of Your people whom You have chosen, a great people who are too many to be numbered or counted. 9 So give Your servant an understanding heart to judge Your people, to discern between good and evil. For who is capable of judging this great people of Yours?”

1. Start with Gratitude

When asked by God, what Solomon wanted from God, Solomon started his prayer with gratitude toward God.

Doesn’t that sound so easy and wonderful? It also sounds like how we want to be, how we want others to see us.

But let me put this into a context I think we can all resonate with.

Someone takes you into the ultimate ice cream store. It isn’t just Baskin Robins 31 flavors but it is a shop which has every flavor of ice cream and many variations of those flavors. It can whjp up any ice cream you want in seconds. In this store you can have ice cream any way you wish, as much as you wish and as often as you wish and all of them are non fattening.

The person who took you into the store looks at you and tells you that you can have any ice cream you wish. All you need to do is to tell him what you want.

The thought of this usually brings up a line from a Queen song which goes:

I want it all and I want it now.

If the God of all creation were to ask you what you want from Him; what would you ask. More importantly how would you start?

I would be more like the kid in the ice cream store and ask for a bowl of chocolate ice cream to eat while I took time to decide what all I thought I could have.

Solomon chose to start his prayer with thanksgiving.

Starting with gratitude helps us in a couple of ways. It helps to remind us what God has done for us, how God has been faithful to us. Being reminded of all that God has done reminds us of our dependence on God.

It also helps us with our humility. Being reminded of all that God has done will reminds us that all we have, all we are is the work of God.

I like the way the CSB puts the beginning of verse 6: “You have shown great and faithful love to Your servant.”

Paul reminds us of another person who had this same level of great and faithful love.

Philippians 2:8 NASB 2020

8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death: death on a cross.

The Christ, who is God, humbled Himself by becoming one of us and willfully going to the cross to pay the price for our sins. This is a great and faithful love that God has shown to you. We should start our prayers with the gratitude of what God has done.

2. Acknowledge Your Limitations

Tell me if you have heard any of these sayings.

To be clear, you don’t have to tell us if someone said any of them about you, just that you have heard them.

They're fishing without any bait.

The light's on but no one's home.

A few screws short of a hardware store.

Not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

A few cards short of a deck.

A few fries short of a Happy Meal.

The elevator doesn't go all the way to the top floor.

They couldn’t fight their way out of a wet paper bag.

They couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket.

They couldn’t be elected dog-catcher.

Every one of us has limitations. We each have things we are good at doing and things that we shouldn’t be doing. This is precisely what Solomon is admitting in verse 7:

1 Kings 3:7 NASB 2020

7 And now, Lord my God, You have made Your servant king in place of my father David, yet I am like a little boy; I do not know how to go out or come in.

“How to go out or come in” is an idiom referring to the skills of leadership.

Solomon was admitting that he was young and inexperienced in leadership. We know about Solomon and how he lead the Hebrews. We know about his wisdom so we don’t really think of him being inexperienced or not having leadership skills.

But Solomon was somewhere between 21 to 25 years old when he stepped into the position that had been filled by Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Samuel and David.

The U.S. Constitution gives basic requirements to be the President of the United States. One of those requirements is that a presidential candidate but be at least 35 years old.

Solomon was thrust into a leadership position at a very early age, and with limited experience like most of us in our early 20s. The framers of our Constitution recognized the need for age and life experience before taking a leadership position as the President of the United States.

Solomon recognized his own limitations that come with age and experience and admitted these to God.

Another example we can look at in the Bible is Jesus. In John 5, Jesus claims that the Son can only do what the Father does. As you read the Bible, you will see that Jesus always sought out the guidance of His father.

In our prayer life we must be grateful to God for all He has done and is doing and we must recognize that we have limitations.

3. Seek Wisdom for Service

One of our limitations is wisdom.

In the Army, at least once a year as an officer or NCO, we were given an evaluation by our supervisor. It wasn’t as simple as going in and your boss saying you are doing ok. It took a bit more.

The first thing was the person to be evaluated had to fill out a form. On that form that person had to list what their goals had been, what goals they had achieved. Then the person had to list what they thought their strengths were and finally what their weaknesses were. It was not fun nor was it easy to fill out. You are writing to your boss areas you think you didn’t do as well as you should have done.

As the last point stated, we all have limitation, weaknesses, but to write them down and give them to someone is not fun. You never want to make yourself out to really be doing badly or to have struggled too much.

In all the years I had to fill those forms out as well as in the years I had to read other people’s forms, I do not ever remember anyone listing wisdom as something they needed.

I wonder if any of us, if God really asked us, would ask for wisdom?

As your pastor, I wish I could stand here and say that is my number one request to God. I can say I have asked for wisdom but most often it has been for other things I have asked.

Since most of us have grey or at least greying hair, wisdom doesn’t seem like something we need at this point. Maybe 20 or 40 years ago but at this age, probably not.

However, wisdom is something we all need more of. We need to be able to discern truth from lies. We need to have wisdom so we can give godly advice. And sometimes we need to have enough wisdom when to say nothing at all.

In the model prayer, Jesus taught us to pray that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

How can we know God’s will if we don’t rely on God’s wisdom?

I hope you will join me this week, at least this week, and pray each morning that God will give us wisdom.

Our prayer for wisdom should help to align us with God as we rely more and more on His wisdom.

Let’ pray.