Page 73 - The Divine Quest

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Ah, this adds one more requirement to prayer! One must not only ask, seek and
knock, but they must believe that they will receive what they ask for. Now we have
the two main tenets of the conceive it and believe it camp. There are a host of people
who are proclaiming that Scriptural prayer that pleases God can be taught from these
two passages I have cited. No other conditions apply, and any prayer that meets
these two conditions will receive an answer. Many poor saints have been harangued
by ministers and Christian brothers and sisters when their prayers were not
answered. They have been told that they must be doubters, and that they have not
prayed the prayer of faith.

Many years ago I read the book “Joni” that told the story of Joni Eareckson Tada. As
a teenager she was involved in a diving accident and was paralyzed from the neck
down. She has a worldwide ministry today and has impacted the lives of millions of
people with a positive witness of the love of God in the midst of suffering. In the book
she told of some saints who told her that she would be healed of her paralysis if she
only prayed believing. Condemnation was put upon her, and she was told that her
unbelief and sin were what prevented her from receiving healing.

There is an expression that speaks of ‘kicking someone while they are down’, and this
speaks of a very low and diabolical action. It is something that the saints should not
do, and certainly not to another child of God. Yet as Joni struggled to come to grips
with the devastating physical suffering that had come upon her, she had saints add
to her trial by heaping condemnation upon her. Joni testified that she did pray
fervently for healing, yet God did not grant her request. Instead a great work of grace
was wrought in her life where she learned to live joyfully before Christ without being
delivered from her physical condition. The apostle Paul demonstrated this same
thing many hundreds of years earlier.

II Corinthians 12:7-10
Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me
from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan
to torment me -- to keep me from exalting myself! Concerning this I implored the
Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, "My grace is
sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Most gladly, therefore, I will
rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.
Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with
persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am
strong.

What was Paul’s thorn in the flesh? I believe it was a physical condition that affected
his eyesight and rendered him practically blind. I would not be contentious about