Praying for peaches

My father hasn’t done well with the cherry tree this year. My husband looked up the symptoms and it seems a fungus that goes for pitted fruit is the culprit. This morning we went to pick raspberries near the peach tree and we found the same ominous rot spot on a cluster of peaches we had seen on the cherries. As I filled my bucket with berries I heard my father start praying for the peach tree—that God would have mercy on it, that disease would not claim it.

I can safely say I have never prayed for a peach tree.

About 10 years ago I did a walk-through of an empty house that a man I know was moving into with his bride. As we went into every room, he laid his hand flat on the wall and prayed for the house, for that particular room, for God’s blessing, for every conversation that would take place there, for a hedge of protection, and forbiddance of entry to Satan.

I can safely say I had never before prayed for a room or a house.

But I have done so since then. And I want to report that I found it a good thing to push out the boundaries of customary prayer—a freeing and faith-expanding thing.

The point is that when we expand our view of prayer (of God!) and are open to new and creative ways of praying, we join the cloud of witnesses in the Bible who prayed unusual prayers. We join Abraham, who thought to ask the Lord on his way to Sodom to spare the city if there were 50, 45, 40, 30, 20, or even 10 righteous men found in it. We join Abraham’s servant Eliezer, who thought to ask God’s help in finding a wife for Isaac by suggesting he ask a peasant girl for water and she answer him in a certain way. We join Peter, who asked Jesus to let him walk on the water.

We even join more contemporary saints like evangelist George Müller (1805-1898), who wrote in his autobiography:

“My wife and I had the grace to take the Lord’s commandment in Luke 12:33 literally, ‘Sell that ye have, and give alms.’ We never regretted taking that step. God blessed us abundantly as he taught us to trust in Him alone. When we were down to our last few shillings, we told Him about our needs and depended on Him to provide. He never failed us.”

God will answer as He pleases, with a yes or a no according to what He deems for our good. And He will be delighted that we thought to ask.