Mike Focht 10/31/2025
What should we pray when we come to times of difficulty? If you are anything like me, my first prayer tends to be a prayer for deliverance. Peter discovered that even when we are drowning, and all we can pray is a quick, Lord, save me! Jesus graciously answers hasty prayers for deliverance. Praise God, He doesn’t let us drown in our weak faith! Refusing to ask for deliverance does not make a Christian more holy than casting ourselves on His mercy.
Of course, we all know there are times when God does not answer our prayers for deliverance. Or at least, He does not answer them right away or as we might wish He would. These times are often confusing, hard, and humbling. When our prayers for speedy deliverance are not answered, most of us don’t know what to pray at all. In fact, we might feel like praying is pointless if we don’t get the rescue we want when we want it. These are some of the most trying seasons of life.
There are numerous reasons why God does not always deliver immediately. My aim in this post is not to list those various reasons. Instead, I want to provide some practical instruction in terms of prayer. There are two prayers we need to learn as Christians. We are familiar with the prayer of, Lord, save me! We should pray that prayer with true childlike faith whenever we come to difficult times.
The second prayer we need to learn is the prayer we find Jesus Christ praying when He faced the troubling and inescapable issue of the cross. He was not going to be delivered from the cross. He was going to be delivered through the cross. What is our Example’s prayer in His time of need?
“Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour?’ But for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify Your name.”
Jesus, our Master, and Teacher, teaches us the prayer we are to pray when immediate deliverance is out of the question. Wonderfully, it is as simple as Peter’s prayer for salvation. Father, glorify Your name.
When we come to difficult circumstances in the will of God, circumstances that trouble our very soul, circumstances we cannot escape, God has His reasons. Those divine reasons have an end—glorifying His Name in our lives. Jesus Christ teaches us that we have times in our lives—solemn “hours”—when our very purpose in life is to magnify the name of God through our circumstances.
At those critical junctures, He enlightens our path of trust with this prayer: Father, glorify Your name. For most of our lives, God will answer the first prayer: Lord, save me! But in those sober hours when the glory of His Name is bound with our passage through troubling things instead of from troubling things—when our very souls tremble—our Savior has given us the second prayer we are to pray. Bend your knees, bow your head, humble your heart, and pray: Father, glorify Your name.