Be specific when you pray
Dr. Roberto Miranda
RESUMEN: Being specific and passionate in our prayers is important in the life of faith. God is a precise God and expects us to pray with precision. The great prayers that changed the destiny of the nation of Israel possessed a quality of specificity and passion. Sometimes God allows delays and silences in our prayers to purify us and raise our posture of concentrated faith. It is the passion and clarity in our requests that allows us to be precise in presenting them to God, and it is this kind of passionate action that generates a favorable decision from heaven.
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.
Time and again we see in Scripture that the great prayers that changed the destiny of the nation of Israel, or that turned the heart of God toward a favorable ruling, possessed a quality of specificity and passion. See, for example, Nehemiah's prayer in Nehemiah 1: 4-11. It is important that our prayers express that same level of intensity, commitment and focus.
In the sixteenth century, the great Scottish reformer John Knox exclaimed to the Lord in one of his prayers on behalf of his nation: "Give me Scotland or I die!" That is the kind of desperate prayer that God has been pleased to honor through the centuries, and which has always drawn power from the throne of grace. Sometimes God allows us to find ourselves against a rock and a hard place so that the posture of concentrated faith is raised in us that will provoke from heaven the response we expect. Often times, the delays and silences of God are part of his treatment in our souls, to purify us of everything that contaminates our requests and takes away their strength and intensity.
In Jeremiah 29:12, God promises the Hebrew exiles in Babylon that at the end of seventy years of discipline and spiritual treatment their prayers will finally reach His throne, because they will have acquired that quality of total surrender and concentration: “Then you will call upon me, and you will come and pray to me, and I will hear you; and you will seek me and find me, because you will seek me with all your heart. And I will be found by you, says the Lord.
It is precisely that passion, that state of definition and lucidity regarding what we are asking for, which allows us to be clear and precise in presenting our requests. When our passion takes on red-hot intensity, our action and our request will possess that definite quality that is so pleasing to God! Many times throughout Scripture we see that it is precisely that kind of passionate action that generates a favorable decision from heaven.
Time and again we see in Scripture that the great prayers that changed the destiny of the nation of Israel, or that turned the heart of God toward a favorable ruling, possessed a quality of specificity and passion. See, for example, Nehemiah's prayer in Nehemiah 1: 4-11. It is important that our prayers express that same level of intensity, commitment and focus.
In the sixteenth century, the great Scottish reformer John Knox exclaimed to the Lord in one of his prayers on behalf of his nation: "Give me Scotland or I die!" That is the kind of desperate prayer that God has been pleased to honor through the centuries, and which has always drawn power from the throne of grace. Sometimes God allows us to find ourselves against a rock and a hard place so that the posture of concentrated faith is raised in us that will provoke from heaven the response we expect. Often times, the delays and silences of God are part of his treatment in our souls, to purify us of everything that contaminates our requests and takes away their strength and intensity.
In Jeremiah 29:12, God promises the Hebrew exiles in Babylon that at the end of seventy years of discipline and spiritual treatment their prayers will finally reach His throne, because they will have acquired that quality of total surrender and concentration: “Then you will call upon me, and you will come and pray to me, and I will hear you; and you will seek me and find me, because you will seek me with all your heart. And I will be found by you, says the Lord.
It is precisely that passion, that state of definition and lucidity regarding what we are asking for, which allows us to be clear and precise in presenting our requests. When our passion takes on red-hot intensity, our action and our request will possess that definite quality that is so pleasing to God! Many times throughout Scripture we see that it is precisely that kind of passionate action that generates a favorable decision from heaven.
