Prayer: "If You Will Ask"

In the classic movie and its recent remake, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the bratty  Varuca Salt says over and over in her perfect British accent, "I want a pony! I want a pony!" Her rich, indulgent father seems incapable of controlling his response to Varuca's non-stop begging, much less choosing with confidence to give her what is truly best.

Sadly, many Christians pray like they are Varuca and God is Mr. Salt. They assume God can be forced to give in to their endless begging. Others know that childish model of prayer is not correct, but are unfamiliar with another model and therefore avoid prayer altogether.

So what exactly is prayer and why should we do it?

Enter Oswald Chambers.  In this reprint of the classic, If You Will Ask: Reflections on the Power of Prayer, theologian Oswald Chambers, (most famed for the devotional, My Utmost for His Highest), shares, in a totally readable fashion, amazing insights into prayer. And unlike so much written about prayer, rather than chiding the reader for not praying more, Chambers instead whets his reader's appetite for prayer.


Mr. Chambers ties prayer to Calvary. He says several times in the book that Jesus did a tremendously difficult work on the cross so that prayer could be simple for us.

We try to explain why God answers prayer on the ground of reason. This is nonsense. God answers prayer on the ground of redemption and on no other ground. Let us never forget that our prayers are heard, not because we are in earnest, not because we suffer, but because Jesus suffered. Because our Lord Jesus Christ went through the depths of agony to the last ebb in the garden of Gethsemane, because He went through Calvary, we have "Boldness to enter the Holiest" (Hebrews 10:19).

Unlike the willful Varuca, who endlessly badgers her father for "stuff," real prayer is first of all about knowing God and not about what we can get from Him.

Then why ask? The whole meaning of prayer is that we may know God. The "asking and receiving" prayer is elementary; it is the part of prayer we can understand. But it is not necessarily praying in the Holy Spirit. Those who are not born again must ask and receive; but when we have received and have become rightly related to God, we must maintain this simplicity of belief in Him while we pray. Our minds must be saturated by the Revelation of prayer until we learn in every detail to pray in the Holy Spirit. Prayer in not an exercise, it is life.

I highly recommend this book. If You Will Ask: Reflections on the Power of Prayer is excellent for the one who is new to prayer as well as the one already well-schooled in it. Although it can be read in one sitting, because the book is short (117 pages) and divided into twelve chapters, it is the perfect book for a person with only snippets of time here and there. I recommend reading it with a pen in hand. There will be many, many passages you will want to highlight. 

Thank you, Mr. Chambers, for your clear teaching. And thank you, God, for being nothing like Mr. Salt!

See Learning to Love the Bible.

See Tell Me Someone is Praying for Us!
See On Making Jonah a Sheppard.