Prayers

Surpassing Understanding

by Terry Barlow
04/11/14
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We all have a tendency to try to “figure things out” at times. It gives us a sensation of being in some kind of control, because whatever we think we have figured out we tend to think we control somehow. But the Apostle Paul writes about a peace the “passes understanding.” That is, God offers us a peace in Christ that surpasses figuring things out (understanding) and whatever fragile security that gives us. The peace of God is always within our reach, whereas understanding what is happening is not always within our reach, it simply isn’t always possible. As we commit people and situations to God in prayer we can find peace. Jesus gave us what is called the Lord’s Prayer though it is more aptly called the disciples’ prayer. Early disciples prayed it three times a day. It was like a prescription from the Great Physician, a prescription for peace and health; health of spirit, soul and body. The tense of that prayer in Greek is aorist imperative, a very urgent tense. That prayer is to be prayed with a sense of urgency. The urgency carries over in Luke chapter 11 to the next passage, the account of the friend who comes in desperate need at midnight knocking at the door. The occupant of that house would not answer simply out of a sense of friendship or closeness to the one knocking, but he would answer his urgent persistence. So whatever our relationship with the Lord may lack in intimacy can be compensated for by simple, urgent persistence, until the time arrives that we have developed more intimacy.