Prayer must be specific

SUMMARY: Effective prayer requires specific and detailed requests to God. He is a precise God and expects us to pray with precision. Like Bartimaeus, we must express our needs clearly and with persistence. God likes to hear our verbalized requests, born from a heart that has concentrated and reduced them through repetition and cultivation. When we present them to Him, it elicits a positive reaction from heaven. Bartimaeus' specific request for sight provoked a miraculous response from Jesus.

All effective prayer must begin with a specific and detailed presentation to God of what we need. Being specific is very important in the life of faith, especially in what has to do with our requests to the Lord. Paul Yonggi Cho, in his book, Prayer, The Key to Revival, declares: God has always answered direct and concrete prayers. Everything He does has a plan and purpose. In Genesis 1 and 2 we are told that God created within specific time frames called days. When he commanded Moses to build the tabernacle, he gave him clear instructions; she did not let him decide whether to make the tent of about twenty cubits (the length between the elbow and the tip of the finger); no, he was told exactly how long and wide it should be. Therefore, God is a precise God, and He expects us to pray with precision.

When the Lord stops and calls for blind Bartimaeus, motivated by his persistent and daring cry, he asks him an intriguing question: "What do you want me to do to you?" Why are you asking that unnecessary question? Obviously what Bartimaeus needs is sight! Evidently, the Lord wanted to hear from Bartimaeus' own mouth the specific expression of his need. There is a certain quasi-legal formality in spiritual processes, and this applies especially to what has to do with God's miraculous interventions in the world. A specific request is required to get a specific response.

God likes to listen to our verbalized requests, declared in a clear and concrete way, born from a heart that has incubated and hardened them over time, which has been concentrating and reducing them through repetition and cultivation to the point. to turn them into a smooth, super concentrated and ultra dense pebble. When we present to the Lord that humble but powerful product of our tears and sleeplessness, it instantly elicits a positive reaction from heaven.

Bartimaeus answers the Lord without hesitation: "Master, let him regain his sight." Five words. But more than enough to provoke the long-awaited response from Jesus: "Go, your faith has saved you." The word says that "He immediately regained his sight, and was following Jesus on the road."