Pray with Confidence

We do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

Romans 8:26

Imagine a teenage computer geek writing software in his basement: “How can I get this in the hands of the people at Microsoft?” He doesn’t know anyone there, and he has no idea how to introduce his ideas to them. Who knows how many requests they receive in a day.

One day there’s a knock at the door, and a man in his late sixties, with grey hair and glasses is standing there. “Hi, I’m Bill Gates…” The next thing this teenager knows, he’s sitting at his laptop with Bill Gates at his elbow.

“Let me tell you,” says Bill, “where Microsoft is headed. Move your work in that direction, and maybe we can be partners.”

When this young man eventually sends his proposal to Microsoft, he sends it with great confidence, because he knows that what Bill Gates has prompted, Bill Gates will receive.

God comes to every believer and teaches us what to pray. When that happens, we can pray with confidence, because what the Spirit has prompted, the Father will receive:

This is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. (1 John 5:14)

Sometimes we’re like the geek working in the basement. But true prayer involves the Father, the Son, the Spirit, and you. There’s a profound sense in which you never pray alone.

Think about the geek’s confidence before and after he talked to Bill Gates. Does your confidence in prayer typically look more like one or the other?