“So the king and Haman went to Queen Esther’s banquet, 2 and as they were drinking wine on the second day, the king again asked, ‘Queen Esther, what is your petition? It will be given you. What is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it will be granted.’ NIV

Before we move on into Esther 8, I want to share with you another comment on prayer – this time from F.B.Meyer in his ‘Great verses through the Bible’, p.175.

“In these words of the king we are reminded that God is willing to do beyond what we ask or think. Not to the half of his kingdom, but to the whole extent of it, has God pledged Himself, ‘’according to the power that worketh in us.’’ But our prayer must be in the name, or nature, of Christ; that is, the nature of Christ must pray in us, and God must recognise Himself come back through the circle of our intercession to Himself. The Spirit must make intercession in us, according to the will of God. When the unselfish, lovely, and holy nature of Jesus pleads in us by the Holy Ghost, there is nothing that God will not do for us, even to the whole of his kingdom.

‘’If ye abide in Me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.’’

‘’Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name He will give it to you’’ ‘

In Richard Foster’s excellent book on prayer, he begins his chapter on petitionary prayer with this quote from C.H.Spurgeon: ‘Whether we like it or not, asking is the rule of the Kingdom.’ He makes the point that some people seem to regard contemplation as the highest form of prayer, but in truth the Bible is filled with petitionary prayers. The prayer Jesus gave His disciples to pray (the one we call ‘the Lord’s prayer) is predominantly petition.

We have the opportunity, the privilege, and the responsibility to ask.