It is good to have friends who are wise and who have been seasoned by their experience of life. It is good to have friends who are trustworthy and who are committed to being a blessing to others. It is good to have people on our side, and especially good to have Christian people on our side.
But our friends are fallible. The wisest among them is still prone to misjudgment, and the most knowledgeable among them is still prone to ignorance. The fairest can still be partial, and the kindest can still act in selfishness. Even the best-intentioned friend can provide counsel that hurts, harms, or leads astray. Friends are a blessing and wise friends a greater blessing still, but, as the old saying goes, the best of men are still only men at the best.
It is a tremendous comfort, then, that when we pray, we are not praying to someone else who is just trying to figure it all out, as we are. We are not praying to someone who sees incompletely and opaquely, or to someone who is merely doing his best to sort fact from fiction and truth from lies. Neither are we praying to someone who is only ever reacting and attempting to make the best decisions possible based on muddled information.
Rather, when we pray, we pray to one who sees and knows everything there is to see and know. We pray to someone who sees not only what is and what was, but also what might have been and what has never been. He knows not only the words that were said and the deeds that were done, but also the thoughts of the mind and the intentions of the heart. He understands the motives as well as the actions and the desires as well as the results.
Even better, we pray to the one who is sovereign over all of it, the one who uses evil just as he uses good, and who redeems the acts of self-serving men just as much as God-fearing ones. We pray to the one who has wisdom that cannot be surpassed and purposes that cannot be hindered, thwarted, or arrested. We pray to someone who knows the end from the beginning and from ancient times the things that are still to come. We pray to the one who stands over all of it and declares with the utmost truth, sincerity, and confidence: “My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose” (Isaiah 46:10). This is the most definitive of statements, for, unless God is a liar, his counsel shall stand, and he will accomplish all his purpose.
This God who is all-wise, all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-purposeful, hears our every prayer and responds to each one in the most appropriate way.
Because we pray to such a God, we can have the utmost confidence in his response to our prayers. This God who is all-wise, all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-purposeful, hears our every prayer and responds to each one in the most appropriate way. If it is best that he answers just when and how we have asked, he will do so. If it is best that he delays and answers in the future, he will do so. If it is best that he denies the very thing we have asked, he will do so. His “yes” and his “no,” his “later” and his “not yet,” and even his silence are inarguably and unassailably the best possible response. Everything he does or declines to do will indubitably bring him the greatest possible glory.
Hence, when we pray, we can pray with confidence that our prayers will never be unheard or misheard. They will never lead to the undermining of God’s purposes or the diminishment of God’s glory. Whether God grants our entreaty or denies it, he will be seen to have acted with knowledge greater than the smartest of any friend and wisdom greater than the wisest of any friend. He will be seen to have acted just the way we would have acted had we seen what he sees, known what he knows, and always acted most faultlessly for the good of others and the glory of his name.
