Desired in Their Prayers

Recently I saw a license plate cover that said on the top: “Pray specifically.” On the bottom was a reference to a passage in this week’s Come, Follow Me lesson: “Judges 6:36-40”. The verses tell of Gideon’s request for confirmation about his mission and future success. He wanted to know for sure that God would truly “save Israel by [his] hand.” So first he requested this of the Lord: “Behold, I will put a fleece of wool in the floor; and if the dew be on the fleece only, and it be dry upon all the earth beside, then shall I know that thou wilt save Israel by mine hand, as thou hast said.” He had a wool fleece that he put on the ground overnight, and he requested of the Lord that there be dew on the fleece and dry ground all around it as a sign to him. This was answered: “And it was so: for he rose up early on the morrow, and thrust the fleece together, and wringed the dew out of the fleece, a bowl full of water.” That’s a lot of dew on the fleece for it to fill a bowl full of water from one night. Interestingly, he then asked the opposite as a second sign: “Let not thine anger be hot against me, and I will speak but this once: let me prove, I pray thee, but this once with the fleece; let it now be dry only upon the fleece, and upon all the ground let there be dew.” Again the Lord answered Gideon’s humble request as a confirmation that he would indeed be successful in his mission: “And God did so that night: for it was dry upon the fleece only, and there was dew on all the ground.” I was intrigued that this story has never been mentioned in general conference, as far as I can tell. Typically, discussions around it focus on whether or not it was okay to ask for a sign, and President Oaks suggested that it was really a miracle and was acceptable as a confirmation from the Lord: “The Old Testament contains memorable examples of miracles that amounted to signs. … Gideon asked for and received a sign that he was chosen to deliver Israel.”  

               It is interesting, then, to consider the story from the perspective of that license plate cover: it indicates that the Lord answers very specific prayers. I don’t think it is meant to suggest that we can order God around with what we want, but we certainly should pray about the details of our lives with specific requests and expressions of gratitude. Surely it is more meaningful, for example, to thank the Lord for a specific instance when we almost got in a car crash but didn’t than to say, “We are grateful for our safety.” And rather than say, “Bless our children,” there is surely more power in our prayers to ask Him for specific strengths or opportunities or help that our children are in need of that day. Gideon’s example reminds me of another very specific prayer in the Book of Mormon: “And now behold, this was the desire which I desired of him—that if it should so be, that my people, the Nephites, should fall into transgression, and by any means be destroyed, and the Lamanites should not be destroyed, that the Lord God would preserve a record of my people, the Nephites; even if it so be by the power of his holy arm, that it might be brought forth at some future day unto the Lamanites, that, perhaps, they might be brought unto salvation” (Enos 1:13). He prayed that if the Nephites were destroyed and if the Lamanites were not, that a record be preserved by the Lord for the salvation of the Lamanites someday. That was certainly quite specific, and undoubtedly inspired by the Lord, and God did answer it as He declared in our day: “And, behold, all the remainder of this work does contain all those parts of my gospel which my holy prophets, yea, and also my disciples, desired in their prayers should come forth unto this people. And I said unto them, that it should be granted unto them according to their faith in their prayers; Yea, and this was their faith—that my gospel, which I gave unto them that they might preach in their days, might come unto their brethren the Lamanites, and also all that had become Lamanites because of their dissensions” (Doctrine and Covenants 10:46-48). The Lord answered the prayer of Enos and many other prophets by bringing forth the Book of Mormon in these last days. The examples and Enos and Gideon show that, in humility and faith, we can ask for specific blessings of the Lord, and He will hear us.