Jesus was departing from Jericho and a large crowd of people was following Him. Two blind men were sitting at the side of the road and cried out to Him: “Have mercy on us, O Lord, Thou Son of David” (Mt 20:30). Jesus stopped and asked them: “What will ye that I shall do unto you?” He was asking about what they wanted Him to do for them. Not surprisingly, their wish was that Jesus would give them their eyesight, which He did. We read that “Jesus had compassion on them, and touched their eyes: and immediately their eyes received sight”.
Similarly, when we go before God in prayer, we should be ready to answer the question, What do we really want Him to do for us? Many, if they were prepared to confess it, would have to say that they most want to earn a lot of money, to get on well in the world, to be healthy, to live long, to be happy, or perhaps to be famous, and even to get to heaven at last.
Balaam himself, ungodly man though he was, desired to “die the death of the righteous” (Num 23:10), but he had no desire to live the life of the righteous; he had no wish to live a godly life now. And there are many today who have the same kind of outlook.
You may ask others what they most want, and they may be seriously unwell or experiencing other difficulties, but they tell you that, more than anything else, they wish their sins to be forgiven; they desire to trust in Christ Jesus, to be pure and holy, to be kept from sin – not least from heart sin – and that God would bless His Word to them. Very likely they would wish to enjoy better health, to be free from pain and to be delivered from all the other difficulties that they have been experiencing. But they recognise that it would be far better for them to obtain spiritual blessings, especially to have the eyes of their souls opened – or opened further – so that they might see Jesus, by faith, as He is revealed in Scripture – for instance, in the verse: “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (Jn 3:16).
These are people who know to seek “first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness” (Mt 6:33); they have begun to experience spiritual desires.
They are learning that the things of this world, however useful many of them are, are not going to last for ever. There is an eternity beyond death, and they must be prepared for it, and so they must be born again; they must have a living, God-given faith in the One who died for sinners. Yes, they will pray for temporal things – and they ought to do so – but the desires that are uppermost in their hearts are spiritual. And they will pray for temporal things with a qualification: that they would be according to God’s will – and also that they would be for their spiritual good. They are learning, slowly, that God knows infinitely better than they do what is good for them.
Such people know to go to God for the supply of their spiritual needs, and indeed for the supply of their needs of every kind. He has control over everything that happens and has unlimited power. So Paul encouraged the believers in Philippi: “My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (Phil 4:19). And it is for the sake of Christ that these needs will be supplied. Flowing from the great work He carried out when He was in this world, there is an infinite treasure of blessings, especially spiritual blessings, laid up in heaven for those who pray looking unto Jesus. Let us not think that anything is too hard for the Lord. And let us not think that anything is too great to ask of Him in prayer.
Let us notice further that the believer’s prayers take to do, not only with their own spiritual interests, but also with the spiritual interests of other individuals and even those of the whole world. God’s children look around them and see sin rampant everywhere, not only in their immediate surroundings but, through the media, they see that it is rampant throughout the world. So they pray to God that He would put a restraint on sin. Apart from the restraint that God – more or less – exercises in every part of the world, it would be a far worse place than it is.
Certainly God has generally been withdrawing His restraint on sin over a number of generations, but we have reason to be thankful that conditions are not worse than they are. If God was to allow violence, for instance, to increase drastically, or to allow the immoral to flaunt their immorality even more than they do, or to allow the authorities in various countries to pass legislation prohibiting Christian worship and practice, how much more difficult it would be for believers and how much more dishonour would be done to God. So the people of God should pray that He would increase His restraint on sinners.
Yet God’s restraint will not, of itself, bring about spiritual progress. His children know this, and therefore they pray for a work of grace that would not only affect individuals but also nations. They wish that God would be glorified in each instance of conversion, but also in bringing nations to serve Him, until the whole earth has been filled with His glory and the kingdom of God has been established everywhere. They desire the spiritual good of people around them and throughout the world. God’s kingdom and Satan’s both lay claim to the allegiance of every man, woman and child in this world. There can be no truce between these kingdoms, and ultimately one or other of them must have the final victory. And that victory will most certainly be God’s.
It is the desire of God’s children that His kingdom should advance until its victory is overwhelming and obvious. They are sad in a generation such as this to see the kingdom of darkness making such manifest progress in so many places. So they send up sincere petitions to heaven pleading that the preaching of the Word would be so blessed that sinners would be delivered from Satan’s kingdom and brought into the glorious liberty of the kingdom of God. They are glad for every individual who has been, in God’s great mercy, brought out of Satan’s kingdom, but they would be glad to see vast multitudes so delivered.
To that end, they would pray for many labourers to be sent into God’s harvest fields – in other words, for many men to be sent out, in all directions, as ambassadors for Christ to beseech sinners to be reconciled to God. Besides, they are to pray that the pure gospel might be proclaimed everywhere, that accurate translations of Scripture would be made for all parts of the world. And they are to pray further that, not only would these prayers be answered, but also the intercession that is made for the conversion of sinners everywhere and the building up of God’s people in their most holy faith, leading to the prosperity of the entire Church of Christ.
We should believe that, as Jesus had compassion on the blind men at Jericho and healed them, so He listens to the prayers of His children, even today. If the Lord does not answer these prayers instantly, He will answer them at some point in the future; He does not turn away the prayers of those who sigh and cry because of the abominations that are done in the land.
So let us ask ourselves: Have we reason to believe that God is teaching us to desire those things which are most related to His glory and to send up these desires to Him in prayer? Have we the kind of desires that have been mentioned in this article as the desires of God’s children? If we never express such desires before God, we have reason to conclude that we are not among God’s children. If this, solemnly, is the case, what need to pray in the words of David: “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me” (Ps 51:10)! A right spirit is one from which sincere desires will flow to God for forgiveness, for holiness of heart and life, for others to be brought into Christ’s kingdom and for God to be glorified in this world.