There shouldn’t be anything surprising about prayer.

Jesus was never surprised about the outcomes of His prayers. But His disciples were. And I think most of us are too. We are surprised when prayers are answered, when things turn out the way we asked. We are awed and call them miracles. Or more often, we ascribe any positive outcome to something else. We say it was a new medicine or luck or hard work or… anything other than God’s answer to our prayer.

When I lost something important recently, I looked all over but couldn’t find it. I prayed that God would show me where to look or find some way for it to be replaced. Later that same day, I did find it. But I forgot to thank God because it didn’t feel like a miracle. It didn’t feel like an answer to my prayer. I told myself that I had just kept looking and eventually looked in the right place.

God is rolling His eyes at me. I prayed to find it, and I did. Prayer answered, right? Why am I so reluctant to give God the credit?

When I look back at my prayer and the outcome, I still am too incredulous to call that a miracle because I wonder why Almighty God would care about my lost item. Why would He make the effort to turn my search toward its true hiding place? Isn’t He busy with more important prayers, like healing sick children or rescuing people from burning buildings?

“Therefore I tell you, everything you pray and ask for — believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” (Mark‬ ‭11‬:‭24,‬ ‭CSB‬‬)

One time Jesus prayed that a fig tree would die. His disciples took note of it. When they returned the next day, they were astonished to see the withered tree. Jesus was not at all surprised. That’s when He said the verse above.

The difference was faith. Jesus had faith in God. The disciples (and I) lack the faith to have prayers as effective as Jesus.

God says over and over in the Bible that He does care about me. He cares about every little thing. If it’s important to me, He wants me to bring it to Him. And He wants me to have faith and trust Him with the outcome. And He wouldn’t mind if I gave Him some credit when things turn out OK.

Dear God, I know I need more faith. Please help me to scrape up some faith so that my prayers can be more effective. I want to trust you. Keep my eyes open to the answers you provide when I do pray. Forgive me for explaining away your provision as something less than miraculous.