Open thy Mouth Wide

(I came across an old post of mine that I thought needed re posting as good reminder of praying BIG)

Psalm 81:10

I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.

There are many examples in the Bible of people praying BIG prayers. For example, take a look at Joshua.

Joshua 10:12-14 Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day. And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the LORD hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the LORD fought for Israel.

For some strange reason, in all my years of wisdom, cough cough, I never really realised that it was Joshua who asked for God to make the sun stand still. It wasn't that God just did it. It says that Joshua 'spake' and 'he said'. As in, Joshua asked God to make the sun stand still! Did you catch that? He asked for God to make the sun stand still??? My mind boggles at his faith in God. For him to ask such an enormous thing of God with hope and expectation of receiving it! 

Talk about praying BIG! And I thought some of my prayers were BIG!

Then take Elisha for example.

2 Kings 2:9-14 And it came to pass, when they were gone over, that Elijah said unto Elisha, Ask what I shall do for thee, before I be taken away from thee. And Elisha said, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me. And he said, Thou hast asked a hard thing: nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee; but if not, it shall not be so. And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it, and he cried, My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof. And he saw him no more: and he took hold of his own clothes, and rent them in two pieces. He took up also the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and went back, and stood by the bank of Jordan; And he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and smote the waters, and said, Where is the LORD God of Elijah? and when he also had smitten the waters, they parted hither and thither: and Elisha went over.

He asked a BIG thing and God granted his request. I would have loved to have been there as he smote the waters. I can just imagine the thunder in his voice as he cried “Where is the LORD God of Elijah?”. Ba Boom! And the waters parted and he went on to do double the miracles that his predecessor Elijah did.

God is pleased by our boldness in prayer. God is waiting to do great and mighty things. We read about the widow’s pot of oil and how she went out and gathered as many pots and vessels as she could, and God filled every last one of them. You know, if she had had more vessels, God would have filled them too!

So why don’t we put out more vessels for God to fill? Is it because of our lack of faith? Why do we put limitations on God?

Ephesians 3:20 Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us

“Exceeding abundantly above all that we ask”. Wow! God is able to deliver but we are so weak in our faith, that we continue to ask little things of God and hesitate to ask the BIG things.

And then there's that little word 'if'. We tack that onto our prayers. Lord bless us with such and such, if you can Lord, if you will Lord. What! There is no 'if' about God's power. The only 'if' is whether or not you believe and have faith!

Jeremiah 32:17 Ah Lord GOD! behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee:

John R. Rice put it like this:

“Small prayers are a sign of weak faith. Big prayers show faith in God. Big prayers, when answered, stop doubts and glorify God, strengthening Christians and convicting sinners.”

So, there it is. The end goal. To glorify God. What a testimony it is when a Christian is able to share an answer to a BIG prayer with the unsaved world. It shows God's great power. It shows that God is still in control. It shows that God is almighty and powerful and has no boundaries.

I love the verse of this song by Annie J. Flint:

“His love has no limits,

His grace has no measure,

His power no boundary known unto men;
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again”.

Can it be that the reason great things don't happen in our churches and in our homes, is because of our small, faithless prayers. We need to learn, me included, to pray expectantly, largely, with faith and God will answer.

Of course, we need to pray according to His will, but that's another subject that I've been learning about and would take a lot more writing and explaining so I'll leave it for another time.

But back to our original verse from Psalm 81:10, I read this quote:

“Our mouths are never full because we never open them wide”

Hmmm. Think on that for a while. I have been, and it's opened up an amazingly long list of prayer requests that I need to now start praying.

I'll leave you with the words of the apostles of old. It is something we all need to ask of God,

Luke 17:5 - And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith.