Prayerful Expectations
“and they said to her, “You are out of your mind!” Acts 12:15
Out of your mind – Did you think that the early followers of the Way were more spiritually sensitive? Did you imagine that they prayed with great belief and trust? They lived in the midst of miracles. Do you suppose that this made them more attuned to God? If that’s your picture of the early church, this little story will help you realize that human beings are pretty much the same no matter when they lived.
Peter is released from prison by the direct intervention of an angel. The release is so dramatic that Peter believes it is a dream and Herod goes on a rampage. But that’s not the important point. The important point is in verse 5. The assembly was praying fervently for Peter all the time he was in prison. They had good reason to do so. Herod has just executed James, the brother of John. But here’s the amazing (and very human) fact. Even though they were praying intensely for Peter, they did not believe the servant girl Rhoda when she said that Peter was standing at the door. They called her maine, a word from the verb mainomai. It means “You are raving”. We get the word maniac from this Greek root. Do you see how ridiculous this was? These people were praying for a miracle, the miracle arrived and they didn’t believe it. It makes you wonder just how much faith they really had, doesn’t it?
Actually, this little story is quite comforting. We learn that even though we have doubting faith, God moves anyway. We learn that even the best of human prayer is laced with doubt, but it doesn’t matter. We learn that God doesn’t ask for perfect prayer; He is quite ready to respond to even imperfect trust. And we learn that we are all pretty much the same, equally capable of letting our paradigms of this world immediately replace the power of God’s paradigm. Rhoda, the maniac, knew Peter was standing at the door. But the real raving mad people were the ones who prayed but couldn’t imagine that it would really happen. No wonder Jesus made that comment about the mustard seed.
Imperfect prayer works, not because it is magic but because God hears even our doubting prayers. When you pray, why not expect the announcement of a maniac? God likes to make things a little crazy.
