Praying for Spiritual Sight
I like Bible prayers. I like short Bible prayers. I’ve noticed that many of the prayers contained within Scripture are relatively short but full of precision and power. That is what I want for my prayer life. I’m trying to cut out a lot of verbal “fluff” and get in sync with the Holy Spirit. After all, He is the one who helps us in times of weakness and bewilderment and intercedes for us according to the will of God. This is awesome! “And in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; 27 and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” (Romans 8:26,27). There is one particular short and powerful Bible prayer I find myself praying over and over recently. It is one sentence. It is ten words. I “stole” it from the prophet Elisha when he prayed for his young servant in 2 Kings 6. When this servant was shocked by the sight of the Syrian army that had surrounded the city of Dothan, where Elisha was staying, he found himself (as I often do) afraid and bewildered. What was Elisha’s response to the same situation? He prayed that short, powerful, ten-word prayer, “O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.” Not even an “Amen.” Done. Short. Powerful. Effective! I need that in my life. Not only a short and loaded plea to heaven, but the answer! Sight! Oh, how spiritual sight changed that young man. It didn’t change the circumstances (which we love to spend a lot of prayer time asking for) but gave him what he needed most. He needed to see what God had provided. Elisha knew he didn’t need counseling, a Bible study or preaching about fear andfaith. Those are good, but at this moment, he simply needed spiritual sight. Why do we need this in our lives, too?
1. What we see often has the illusion of being absolutely real. What the young servant saw was not the Kingdom reality that was actually there! Only when his spiritual eyes were open did he see the reality of God’s horses and chariots of fire.
2. If you can change someone’s sight, you can change their life! Do you suppose that the servant’s spiritual life changed from that moment? Mine would. Yours would. And it can drastically change today, as well, if we cry out and plead that God would also “open our eyes.”I wonder……..when did those horses and chariots show up? When Elisha prayed? I don’t think so. My guess is that they were already there. So then I wonder again…..what is “already there” in our lives and circumstances, that we just can’t see. Shall we pray?
