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There is a lost secret to prayer, that isn’t really highlighted and has been to a degree missed in developing and understanding about how to pray especially in relation to pressing difficulties. From 2 Corinthians Chapter 12 in the NIV version of the Bible it states: Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say, 7 or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. Some of the things mentioned here cover the gamut of what people might be experiencing right now. Hardships of all kinds, difficulties relating to weaknesses, and shortfalls that just linger but can also come about swiftly from seemingly no where. What is missed from this particular passage that is simply not highlighted and why is this missed? There is the perception that the answer to the prayer that was three times made by Paul was a no answer, that the problem would not be relieved. The whole passage and the meaning presented seems to be passed over or highlighted to mean that Paul did have weaknesses and difficulties even after his conversion and then the secret is missed. There is some speculation as to what this might have been and it does revolve about the development of eyesight difficulties which seem to be mentioned in Galatians chapter 5 and at the beginning of Chapter 6 where apparently he is writing in very large letters so he can see what he is writing. This prayer of Paul did get a response and the response was that sufficient grace would be supplied from the power of God and this grace reached into the realm of perfection. So we see that the prayer, was answered with grace given, but it just wasn’t in the expected form so that is one of the secrets here, to ask for specific grace for the specific situation and expect to get it and also ask for help in identifying and working with the form that this grace will take. The second and major secret is this, here is the man himself in heavy duty difficulties, not unlike most of us today. Paul himself was in the throes of a real problem. Here we have a key and a secret about what to ask for with regards to a problem. The prayer should be crafted that the problem be removed or crafted towards asking the Lord to take it away. As it is does say in these verses Paul was getting supreme and surpassing revelations from the Lord, but even from this high spiritual position his prayer was such that he would ask for the removal of the difficulty and that whatever this particular difficulty was that the discussion would revolve around grace which was not a matter of piety per se, but the awesome power of the Lord being present to the situation that Paul was praying about. In his particular position, the difficulties were later understood after the prayer to be there for Christ’s sake but that they were wasn’t automatically the case and he did not necessarily know that at first, he had to ask and find out. He was still right to ask for the removal of the difficulties as this difficulty or the difficulties might not have been present for Christ’s sake. In most cases it would more be that the Lord would take you out of the troubles. From 2 Peter Chapter 2 verse 9 it reads from the King James version of the Bible," The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished." This leading out would include illnesses, diseases, and difficulties of any possible nature. Jesus took the blind man out of the village and healed him. Part of the surrounding difficulties that hindered the blind man was his place in the village as the blind man and being tagged as the blind man to others. Jesus took him by the hand and led him out of the village. Given that this is Paul himself, the first mode of prayer for real difficulties is to ask that the Lord remove them or take them away. . There might be reasons not to and even with this power will be provided to deal with the situation but the lost secret from this passage is simply that we are to ask the Lord first to take these troubles away and he will come back with any possible reason that they would remain but otherwise this is the first approach and key approach to praying about difficulties.
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