“O Sovereign Lord,…Herod Antipas, Pontius Pilate the governor, the Gentiles, and the people of Israel were all united against Jesus, your holy servant, whom you anointed. But everything they did was determined beforehand according to your will. And now, O Lord, hear their threats, and give us, your servants, great boldness in preaching your word.   Stretch out your hand with healing power; may miraculous signs and wonders be done through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” Acts 4:24-30 NLT

This prayer recently grabbed my attention, mainly because I don’t often find myself praying like this. My prayers usually consist of requests for God’s deliverance from hardship and general unpleasantries, both for myself and those closest to me.

Of course, God invites us to ask for whatever we want (Mt. 7:7-12), in part because His heart is to bless us. When He answers our prayers, we experience a growing awareness of His presence and care, something I believe He very much wants us to know. However, something else I think God wants us to know is how to trust Him when we don’t understand why He is saying “no”.

Paul described a time when Jesus said “no” to him. I’m referring to the mysterious “thorn in the flesh” experience he described in 2 Cor. 12. Paul asked God three times to remove it (vv. 8-10), but Jesus responded by saying, “My grace is sufficient”. Paul understood Jesus’s reply to mean that he would not endure the experience alone and, in addition, His strength would supply him with the grace necessary to live with the “thorn”. Paul understood God’s intent for leaving the “thorn” to be a preventive from his boasting–something that could have resulted from the amazing sights God showed Paul when He took him into the third heaven (v. 4). The “thorn” became a daily reminder to Paul to rely on God for His strength rather than his own. This new paradigm led him to boast in his weaknesses saying, “…when I am weak, then I am strong”. We could conclude from this story that when God’s answer is “no”, His intent is to deliver us through our trial, not from it.

The context for the prayer in Acts 4 is Peter and John’s arrest after having healed a lame beggar in the temple courts. As you might suspect, the healing stirred much enthusiasm among the Jewish crowds, but it also elicited the unfavorable attention of the Jewish religious leaders. When brought before the religious high council, Peter gave an eloquent and bold speech accusing the religious leaders of conspiring to crucify the Messiah. Infuriated, the religious leaders made intimidating threats intended to dissuade the disciples from further similar action. In response, Peter courageously told them that he and the other disciples could not stop talking about what they had experienced. Fearing a revolt by the crowds, the religious leaders reiterated their threats then released Peter and John without harming them. They immediately reported back to the other Jesus followers and, together, they prayed this prayer.

Their prayer reveals how the disciples were learning to see and live life like Jesus. They had seen the all- powerful Messiah allow Himself to be falsely accused and executed as a criminal, after He had asked for “this cup to pass from Him”. Knowing this, I think His disciples had begun to recognize prayer as being less about them getting what they wanted and more about asking God to bring His kingdom to bear in their current circumstances, while fortifying them as His agents.

The counter-intuitive words of Jesus, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23 NIV), were likely making more sense to His disciples at this point, too. They knew answering this call would involve pain, hardship, and possibly even the loss of their lives. Between Acts 1, when they were still asking Jesus when the kingdom would be restored to Israel, and Acts 4 when they were praying this prayer for courage and boldness in the face of adversity and persecution, they had grown significantly in their understanding of how Jesus was inviting them to live out their faith in the world. It appears that they had stopped looking for an immediate overthrow of Rome and had begun living as heaven’s exiles who were awaiting restoration to their homeland. After the disciples prayed, God responded in a demonstrative way. Their meeting place shook—a tangible expression of God’s presence and power, bolstering the disciples’ confidence that God’s favor and strength was upon them.

Father, I want to live out my faith in the world like Jesus did. I pray that in the places you lead me I will have the boldness and confidence Peter and John demonstrated. I don’t find myself rejoicing, like Paul, over the opportunity to fill up the remaining sufferings of Christ (Col. 1.24), therefore I recognize a need for a deeper of work of your grace if I’m going to imitate Jesus in this way.