It was a really sharp question.

If God is sovereign, how do we pray for good things while also honoring God's final decision

as the best option?

It's a question from a listener named Connor.

Pastor John, how much confidence should we voice in petitioning God for physical healing?

It somehow feels wrong or cheap to pray.

God heal this person, but if you don't, that's okay, you're well-be-done.

I feel less genuine in my asking God to move on someone's behalf when I constantly

also acknowledge to myself that he might not, and I must acknowledge it.

Could you give us an example of how to rightly pray in confidence and with authority

on someone else's behalf for healing while remaining in full submission to the mystery of God's will?

Well, let me say to Connor that at age 72, I wonder if I will go to my grave without having come

to a satisfactory answer to this question.

I circle back to this question again and again because of the texts that both call us to confidence

that we will receive from the Father what we ask when we ask in faith, like Mark 11, 23 and 24,

and texts that give the Lord Jesus, for example, as a model who, as the perfect prayer said after

he made his request, nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done, Luke 2242.

Clearly, it was not sin for Jesus to add that qualifier. He didn't sin.

So let me simply give you the pieces of the puzzle of prayer that I keep rearranging in my mind

to try to see the coherent biblical picture because I know there's a coherent picture.

This is the Bible. This is God's word. If there's a problem, it's a problem, me, not Jesus.

Two of the pieces we've already mentioned is the pieces of the puzzle of prayer.

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