Ridiculous Prayers
While I was traveling this past week, I had some time to catch up on my reading. One of the books that I got to read a bit was Mark Batterson’s “In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day” and there was a section that I read that really grabbed me.
He started the section with this statement: “To the Infinite, all finites are equal.” Sounds strange to say, but he goes on to talk about how we tend to rank things. Being finite human beings, everything around us gets ranked – big or small, high or low, etc. – even things like miracles and prayer requests. But God is infinite. He’s beyond all scope of measure. To Him, all our prayers and requests are the same – there are no “big” prayers or “little” prayers.
Often, we come to God when there’s something huge going on – someone we love has a terminal illness, we’re struggling to make ends meet, or we just want to find a job – but we often don’t mention the little things, as if they’re too little for God to mess with. We think that God can’t be bothered with little, seemingly insignificant problems when there are bigger things to worry about.
There’s a story from 2 Kings 6 that Mark shares. In it, a group of prophets are chopping trees when one of their iron axe heads falls into the river. The guy who lost it is in great distress because it was borrowed. Elisha overhears what’s going on and prays a ridiculous prayer: God, make the iron axe head swim. How many of us, if faced with similar circumstances would do the same thing? I’ll be honest, that’s probably not the first thing I’d do. I’d hop in the car and head to the hardware store and get a new one. But pray for it to float? That’s just crazy!
God, however, hears the prayer and does just that – he makes the iron float. To God, the infinite one, there is no request to small or too big. Just like when He fed 5000+ people with just a five loaves and two fish. There is nothing too small for God to handle.
So what was the last ridiculous prayer that you prayed? Is there anything that you’ve felt was “too small” to ask God about? I know I’m guilty of often thinking that “I should be able to handle this – I don’t need to bother God with something so small” but God’s not bothered by those little requests because to Him, they’re not little.
Try to remember that when you’re thinking that your prayer is too small.