Most of us believe in prayer.  Even if we don’t pray very much, we believe in it.  Many people who are not Christians believe in it, requesting Christians to pray for them.  But many of us who pray have a problem with prayer.  Simply stated it is that prayer doesn’t work.  Or not like we expect it to.  Perhaps a personal experience might help to illustrate what I mean.

    One day as I was working on a car with metric only fittings, I removed a nut in the engine compartment and dropped it just as I got it off.  The car wouldn’t run without the nut, so I put it in neutral and pushed it back so I could get the nut.  I was working on the ground where there were many leaves, so I spent a lot of time sifting through them, looking for the nut.  But I couldn’t find it.  After a while, I decided I would ask the Lord to show me where it was.  I was confident He would show me, because I really had to have that nut.  So I got down on my knees in the pile of leaves and prayed a simple prayer for guidance.  Then I got up and started looking again.

    But I couldn’t find the nut.  Not even when I raked the area and sifted through the leaves one handful at a time.  I was desperate.  I didn’t have any metric nuts.  There are no auto parts stores out our way - only trees.  Then I thought of taking a nut off an old Toyota I no longer drove.  That should solve the problem.  So I found and removed a nut that was fairly close to what I needed, and started to put it on the engine of the other car.

    As I did this, I was grumbling in the back of my mind because God didn’t answer my prayer.  That may explain why I was so clumsy in my work.  I held onto the nut, but I dropped my wrench.  I saw where it fell in the engine compartment, so I stuck my hand down there to retrieve it.  And the first thing my fingers touched was the nut I dropped an hour before.

    I was both glad and sad.  I was glad I found the nut.  I put it on, rejoicing that the Lord had heard my prayer after all.  But I was also sad, because I had not fully trusted Him to do so.  When He didn’t do it according to my timetable and program, I decided He wasn’t going to do it at all.  So I was ashamed and accepted the rebuke of the Spirit, who seemed to say, “Littlefaith, why did you doubt?”

    This is a simple illustration of a profound problem.  We say more than we believe.  We loudly profess we believe God answers prayer.  But when He delays, or detours, we give up on Him and try our own devices.

    How grateful I am that He doesn’t give up on us.