My girls don’t ask me for a whole lot anymore. They are both married now and each has her own life, her own husband, her own means. They are no longer my dependents, no longer entirely reliant upon me when it comes to provision.
But when I think back to the years they were under my roof, I can remember many times when they asked me for what they could not provide for themselves. Sometimes it was money, sometimes it was things, sometimes it was places to go or activities to enjoy. They made their petitions and it fell to me to say yes or no.
In retrospect, I was often not a very effective dad when I responded to these requests. I often said no grouchily, simplistically, or arbitrarily. I often said yes more to make my life easy than to do what was best for them. While I think I was generally a pretty good father, these situations often saw me at my worst.
One of the poetic prayers I have integrated into my devotions is Joseph Dacre Carlyle’s “Lord, When We Bend Before Thy Throne.” It’s a prayer about prayer and in its words we entrust ourselves to God, knowing that he is wise, that he is able, and that he is good. The poem ends with this stanza:
Let faith each meek petition fill.
And waft it to the skies;
And teach our hearts ’tis goodness still
That grants it or denies.
I have often been deeply affected by these words. When I pray them, I am voicing my confidence that God will respond to my prayers with an expression of his goodness. That goodness will be revealed in one of two ways: by granting the petition or by denying it. Whether he gives exactly what I ask for, whether he gives me nothing at all, or whether he gives me something else entirely, I can be confident that he will give what is good and what is best.
Why? Because God is wise and can never behave foolishly. He is good and can never behave wickedly. He is all-knowing and can never behave ignorantly. He is all-powerful and can never have his will stopped or thwarted. And apart from all of that, God has great love for me as his child, a love so deep and profound that he expressed and proved it in the death of his own Son.
With all this being the case, I can and should have total confidence that God will only ever express goodness toward me in answer to my prayers. When, in the words of the poet, I “bend before his throne and my petitions pour,” I can do so with complete conviction that what follows will be good, even if it doesn’t seem that way in the moment. I can have complete conviction that what follows will be so good that it is exactly what I would choose if I could stand in the place of God to see all he sees, know all he knows, and desire all he desires. This is the kind of confidence I can have when I pray.
And Christian, this is the kind of confidence you can have as well. When you pray today, even if you pray for what you desire more than anything else, and even if you pray for something whose right answer seems so straightforward to your mind, you can pray with confidence that God’s answer will be entirely aligned with his goodness. Whether he grants your petition or denies it, you can trust that his answer is not just good, but the absolute best, and that someday you will acknowledge this and praise him for it.
Here’s that poem/hymn in case you’d like to integrate it into your prayers as well.
1. Lord, when we bend before Thy throne
And our confessions pour,
Teach us to feel the sins we own
And hate what we deplore.2. Our broken spirit pitying see,
True penitence impart;
Then let a kindling glance from Thee
Beam hope upon the heart.3. When our responsive tongues essay
Their grateful hymns to raise,
Grant that our souls may join the lay
And mount to Thee in praise.4. When we disclose our wants in prayer,
May we our wills resign
And not a thought our bosom share
That is not wholly Thine.5. Let faith each meek petition fill
And waft it to the skies;
And teach our hearts ’tis goodness still
That grants it or denies.
