Doris,

     Perhaps this will answer your question.  I was in a home
group Bible study each week at a friend's home.  We always had a
time of prayer before we left.  One night, a lady asked us to pray
for an elderly dying man she knew.  I believe she mentioned that
he was a relative of her's but I can't recall for certain right
now.  He had cancer, was in a lot of pain, and as she talked about
him, I began asking her questions about the man.  He had lived a
good faithful Christian life as a Pentecostal all his life. 
During our brief conversation, she said he was really fearful. 
She stated he was even afraid he may have lost his salvation.  At
first, when I asked her to clarify what she said, she said, he was
afraid of dying.  I didn't believe this was the source of his
fear.  I felt more that he was afraid he could not trust God
enough for a miracle that he might be healed because, based upon
other things she had said about him and his family, that's what
everybody else was praying and wanting God to do.  I asked the
lady, Does he ever say he just wants to go home and be with the
Lord?  She said, That is exactly what he wants.  I said, Then
let's pray for that.  when we prayed, I asked that his physical
pain would go away and his fears would go away, too, and that the
Lord would take him home.  She came back to the Bible study the
following week to report he had passed away a couple of days after
we had prayed for him and all his pain had disappeared before he
died and he claimed he felt nothing but peacefulness and he had no
fear of dying and knew he was going to Heaven.

     Several years ago, my daughter, Gretchen, was about 8 years
old and became very ill.  We didn't have any health insurance at
the time.  I was trying to believe God that she would be healed. 
We had seen it happen before but for some reason, this time, I
just couldn't decide.  I stopped what I was doing that day and
said, Lord, I don't know what to do.  I want Gretchen to be healed
but something doesn't feel right when I ask for that.  Clear as it
could be if it were an audible voice, I heard Him say, Take her to
the doctor.  We did, she had strep, and they put her on
medication.  I was totally satisfied I had done what the Lord
wanted.  Why didn't the Lord heal her?  I don't know.  Actually,
that isn't true; I do know.  The simple truth is, the Lord knew I
did not have the spiritual knowledge yet to believe God to the
point she could be healed.  I could explain more about this one
but it would be a real long explanation so I will skip it for
now.

     Several years ago, I was pastoring a group of about 45 to 50
people.  It was called Word and Praise Fellowship.  There was a
man in the church who was a great man of God.  He had been
miraculously healed more than once in his life.  He was one of the
strongest men of faith I personally ever knew.  His wife, I felt,
was never a Born Again Christian.  I won't explain how I knew this
but it was true.

     He called me one day and asked me to pray for them.  They
were driving that day to Texas to see his wife's father because he
was dying of cancer.  His wife even told me that she was confident
her husband could lay hands on her father and the cancer would go
away.  When the husband called and asked me to pray as they
traveled, I knew there was more to his call because I had been
praying that morning and the Lord told me what he was worried
about.  He said, Phil, my wife is expecting me to lay hands on her
father and he will experience a miracle.  I told him that I
already knew this and had been praying about it.  I never once
believed it was God's will for the man, dying of cancer, to be
healed.  I don't know why but I just felt his life was over.  My
friend was upset because his wife was expecting a miracle out of
him and that put a huge amount of pressure on their marriage.  By
the way, she later divorced him.  The man, a friend like I never
knew before, no longer is living for the Lord and is, the last we
talked, living in sin.

     One night, about midnight, or a little after, a friend here
in Denver called me.  He sounded almost like his voice was going
to snap like a tree branch.  I said, John, what's wrong.  He said,
Phil, my father just died.  He wasn't a Christian.  I tried to
console John the best I could but he wasn't listening.  He said, I
need you to agree with me in prayer.  I asked John what we were
agreeing about.  He said, Agree with me that my father will be
raised from the dead so I can talk to him about receiving Christ. 
Wow!  Could I have done this?  I suppose but I thought it was a
little late.  Furthermore, John was asking for this prayer out of
guilt, and fear, because he felt it was his fault that his father
wasn't Born Again and went to Hell and all because of him.  This
was untrue, of course, but John was, to say the least, in shock at
the time.

     Keep in mind, I am discussing petitionary prayer, that is,
how to ask God and be assured of an answer.  There may be times we
just don't know as in the case with the elderly man dying of
cancer.  We could have just prayed, Lord, if it be your will.  Of
course, there wouldn't have been anything wrong with that but as
it turned out, there was more information that allowed us to pray
what I call Will Of God Prayers for this man.  By that I mean, we
could make a specific prayer request which God could answer.

     For example, when we are considering petitionary prayer, when
we sit down to eat, we don't pray, Lord, if it is your will, bless
this food to our bodies.  We already know what His will is and
that is to bless the food we eat.  In short, we are not using
petitionary prayer, or making a request of God, but literally, we
are thanking God for what He already wants to do.

     What if you have a friend or relative who isn't Born Again. 
We want to see him saved, of course, so we don't make request of
God by saying, Lord, if it be your will, please bring my brother
Wolfgang to Christ.  This is not a petitionary prayer, or
shouldn't be, because we already know, according to Scripture, the
will of God in this matter.

     My point in the last lesson was that First John 5:14-15 is
not referring to praying, if it is God's will.  In fact, that
passage is referring to just the opposite, that is, if we pray,
knowing God's terms for petitioning Him, He not only will hear us,
but promises to answer our prayer.  I'll be speaking more directly
to this aspect of prayer in the next lesson.  I will attempt to
prove that God wants to do what we ask Him.  In my opinion,
therefore, what He wants is for us to pray and find out His will,
then ask Him.  I hope this helps.  Knowing me, though, I probably
created more questions than answers.

It Sounds Like God To Me.
www.SafePlaceFellowship.com