Acts Chapter 4: Verses 29-31 (NIV-UK)
‘Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.’
After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.
Peter and John went back to the other followers after they were released. Rightly, they turned to prayer. But what they prayed teaches us a valuable lesson about how we should pray in times of difficulty, and why. They could have prayed for protection from further persecution, but they didn’t. They could have prayed for the Jewish Council to be restrained, but they didn’t. They could have prayed for an easier way to spread the Gospel, but they didn’t. Instead, they prayed for boldness to continue spreading the word and ministering as they had been doing, and to be able to do so with great boldness. And God powerfully answered that prayer!
When we are facing difficulties, it’s easy to pray for protection, or for a way out of the situation. But if we follow the example of the disciples, we should pray for God to use us and move through us in the situation. That’s what God wants to do, and that may well be why we find ourselves in those particular circumstances. And we can be assured that this is a prayer that God will answer.
Dear Lord,
I’m so grateful for the lesson I have learned from this prayer. Help me to pray likewise when I find myself in a difficult situation. I ask this in Jesus’ Name. Amen.