022109 Musings: Jehoshaphat's Prayer by John.

Jehoshaphat's Prayer

When I was a young lad, we were forbidden to curse, but we soon learned other words from plays, movies and other church people. Those words could express the same depth of feeling without offending anyone. I'm not sure where I picked it up, but "Jumpin' Jehoshaphat" came into my vocabulary, and I used it when shocked or surprised. No one ever reprimanded me, so it got to be a much used term in my vocabulary. I attended church regularly and joined when I was twelve, but I didn't really devote my life to Jesus until I was in the Navy in 1945, maybe 46, I can't remember for sure. That's when I discovered the Bible was not a dry-as-dust book, but wonderfully interesting, a Book I began to know as "The Word of God." I put that in quotations because there are words, phrases and sentences in the Bible that God did not speak, but as a whole, it is God's Word, and it contains the Words of Life!

Reading the Old Testament, I came across Jehoshaphat's prayer in II Chronicles 20. It is without a doubt one of the greatest teaching prayers in the Bible.

Here was a king, but just a man. By reading the Biblical account, we know he made a great many bad decisions, decisions he would not have made under God's leadership, yet on this occasion when Jerusalem was threatened by the surrounding nations with an army much too big for Jehoshaphat's army to combat with success, he prayed this great prayer.

Come to think of it, most of us offer only perfunctory prayers on a regular basis. I'm sure God hears them, but it seems to me that He must be bored by them most of the time. We ask God to supply our food, shelter, etc, but our prayers are similar to the "I lay me down to sleep..." prayer. It becomes something we just do rather than really pray. Revelation 5:8 pictures the 24 elders holding bowls filled with prayers of the saints. All believers are saints. Revelation 8:3-5 completes the picture. An angel takes incense and those dedicated believers' prayers, offers them before God, and the smoke from that golden altar rises up before God! Can you imagine anything more beautiful? I can't, but I don't think any prayer that comes from the head instead of from the heart will be in that sweet smelling incense!

I think Jehoshaphat's prayer is right there in the midst of that sweet aroma before God. He and his people were in very real danger. They recognized the threat. They were aware of their inability to cope with it, and they gathered at the temple. That's where Jehoshaphat prayed with, and for the people. In the process, he revealed his trust in and reverence for God. He reminded God of His promises, and of His great deliverance of the people from Egypt, and of His gift of the land where they were. He reminded God that He would not allow the Israelites to destroy these nations who were now threatening them, and last of all, he acted believing God was with them.

They moved toward the enemy with specially appointed men leading the way singing, "Give thanks to the Lord, for his love endures forever!" God heard and answered his prayer. The enemy's army rose up and fought among themselves so that the Israelites saw only dead bodies lying before them instead of warriors!

I believe we should not wait until we have a crisis to really pray. I believe our prayers will be in the golden bowls of incense whatever that picture may mean when they come from our hearts. I have no doubt that God will answer our heart-felt prayers. I am sure the best way and the best time to pray is every moment we think about God! I Thessalonians 5:17 says, "Pray continually," and I believe that is what Paul advocated. We don't have to be on our knees. We don't need to have closed eyes. We don't need a temple of church building. We don't need to speak aloud. We just need to turn our prayer to God with a heart-felt sentence, or two, or three, or maybe many, many more, and we do not need to be concerned about what people think about our prayer. It's a private conversation with God unless we choose to have others pray with us! Like Jehoshaphat, we may well find the prayer of the whole church together pleases our Father. We should not neglect that, but we should put our hearts into it.