Improving Your Chances Through Prayer!
“Then who has any chance at all?” the others asked. “No chance at all,” Jesus said, “if you think you can pull it off by yourself. Every chance in the world if you trust God to do it.” (Luke 18:26, 27 MSG)
When it was time for Esther to take a step of faith, to leave her comfort behind and stand in the gap for her people she didn’t do it on her own. No, she didn’t approach her King before approaching the King of Kings: If you persist in staying silent at a time like this, help and deliverance will arrive for the Jews from someplace else; but you and your family will be wiped out. Who knows? Maybe you were made queen for just such a time as this.” Esther sent back her answer to Mordecai: “Go and get all the Jews living in Susa together. Fast for me. Don’t eat or drink for three days, either day or night. I and my maids will fast with you. If you will do this, I’ll go to the king, even though it’s forbidden. If I die, I die.” (Esther 4:14-16 MSG)
Esther improved her chances of success dramatically because she didn’t just rely on her own beauty, her favorable positions with the King, or her clever ways of revealing the true villain in their midst. Certainly all of these things came into play but she knew none of that was enough to turn the tide. It required intercession, prayer, fasting in unified focus. She knew she could not pull this off by herself. She needed God to go before her. In fact this whole chapter in Luke 18 starts out with this same challenge. Jesus uses the parable of the persistent widow to challenge His disciples to a different way of thinking about prayer: So what makes you think God won’t step in and work justice for his chosen people, who continue to cry out for help? Won’t he stick up for them? I assure you, he will. He will not drag his feet. But how much of that kind of persistent faith will the Son of Man find on the earth when he returns?” (Luke 18:7, 8 MSG). How many times do I try to do things in Your Name Lord without going forward in You? Why is it so hard for me to humble myself put my projects, plans, ideas and challenges in Your hands before even taking a step towards doing them? How many people’s lives hang in the balance in this city waiting for a group of people who will stop trying to do things by their own strength or spiritual prowess and instead start walking in wild abandonment of trust in God? Lord, I give You New Hope Seattle, I give You my family, I give You all the challenges I face. Let me face them in prayer first before anything else.
