Ya Gotta Buy a Ticket
January 28th, 2007 by Larry D. Burton
Joe was a fervent believer in prayer. Every day, two or three times a day he would ask God to please let him win the lottery. Ten years went by and Joe did not win the lottery.
One day in his prayers he called out to God, saying, “Lord, I know you answer prayers I’ve seen it happen in many people’s lives. You have answered my prayers for other people but for ten years now I’ve been praying to win the lottery and I’ve not won a thing in all that time, I’ve not even received a sign.”
“Joe,” God answered back, “you have been a good and faithful servant and I would love to reward you with winning the lottery but you are going to have to at least buy a ticket.”
I am convinced that God does, indeed, answer prayers. I’m also convinced that to receive an answer to a prayer it has to be a legitimate prayer. in other words, it has to be a prayer prayed in the way that Jesus would pray, in search of God’s will.
I also believe that God requires us to help in answering some prayers, much like Joe needing to buy a lottery ticket in order to win the lottery. It is very easy to pray for the hungry to be feed but acting on the prayer to feed the hungry ourselves often doesn’t occur to us. By acting on our requests to God in this way we may see ourselves doing much more to feed the poor than we ever thought we could do before acting on this desire that we have prayed for.
Prayer often opens our eyes to solutions we can provide to those we pray for. If you are praying for a friend who is going through a rough time you are keeping that friend on your mind and by doing so God may give you an idea of how to comfort that friend. The key is to keep our minds open to what our prayers may require from us.
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You are right. The prayers that are unanswered are often those that are for an unworthy purpose. “And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong - you want only what will give you pleasure.” James 4:3. You also have to be in the right condition. “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.” James 5:16. Also it is not only the Holy Spirit working through us. We are not passive spectators but His active agent. God bless.
I am still chewing on this little homily, Larry, and I am grateful to you for the stimulus. The grace of God may be unrelated to our own actions, but to mirror in some small way that Divine grace, we need to participate in our own prayer’s answer. That “ticket” may be an action of ours, for ourselves or for others. I think prayers of thanksgiving complete the cycle, and make the original prayer fulfilled.