Training Wheels

"Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven." (Matthew 18:19)

We love this verse, and we quote it constantly, and here is something about it that will not be popular. It was spoken to people who are not yet mature. Say that carefully. It is a promise, it is true, and God keeps it. But it is a promise handed to those who have not yet learned the intimacy of trusting God when the room goes quiet. It is training wheels, and there is no shame in training wheels. Every one of us has needed them.

Now go and read Luke 11 and Luke 18. Those chapters are written for a different reader. The friend who knocks at midnight and keeps knocking. The widow who comes back to the judge and comes back and comes back again. Those are not stories about getting an answer quickly. They are stories about people who did not leave.

That is the growth to want, for you and for me: to move from a faith that needs a visible answer to prove the line is open, into a faith that will stay in the room with God when nothing at all is coming back. Do not despise the early promise; God gave it to steady you. But do not camp there either, treating answered requests as the only proof he is near. Both are prayer. Only one of them has become friendship.