Watchful prayer

I have been praying in recent months, "Lord, teach me to number my days, that I might have a heart of wisdom." During that time, I collapsed twice, once in public, turning mustard-colored and clocking a pulse of 34 beats per minute.

Yesterday a doctor phoned and taught me two new words --- "ventricular trachycardia" --- which put me in a weird zone all day. Suddenly there was an urgency to living --- a need to make things right with a few people, an utter insipidness in worldly music and pastimes.

But it didn't dawn on me till last night that this was all a direct answer to the aforementioned prayer.

I believe there is a problem with our praying, which God drolly illustrates in the incident in which Mark's house church prays for Peter's release from prison and then doesn't believe he is at the door knocking (Acts 12).

Charles Finney tells of the days before his conversion: "On one occasion, when I was in one of the prayer meetings, some of the attendees asked if I wanted them to pray for me. I told them no, because I did not see that God answered their prayers." Ouch.

"On further reading of my Bible, it struck me that their prayers were not answered because they did not comply with the conditions upon which God had promised to answer prayer. They did not pray in faith, in the sense of expecting God to give them the thing for which they asked."

Elijah on Mt. Carmel bowed in strenuous prayer for God to send rain, and kept sending his servant to check the sky at intervals for signs of clouds. This is the kind of "watchful" (Colossians 4:2) prayer God wants.