Prayer Making Way for Trust

Psalm 52:8 says 'I will trust in God's unfailing love for ever'. We want to be trusting God, we want our trust to endure, we want it to survive thick & thin.

Yet I wonder how often we forget that to actually put trust into practice can mean stepping back, chilling, letting God take over. The story of Peter's miraculous escape from prison in Acts 12 is a great story and brings much encouragement. But it also illustrates (in a somewhat humorous way) how we need to pray earnestly, and then step back to let God be God and do His thing.

The church are full of desire, energy, and demonstrate great zeal as they pursue their prayer meeting into the night - undoubtedly seeking God with all their might for Peter's safekeeping. Look how in their zeal they fail to recognise how God has acted (v15)!

Nothing wrong with their earnest prayers, nothing wrong with their zeal, after all did not Jesus teach that we should pray and pray and not give up (Luke 18)? But at some point these prayers must make way for trust - resting in God and leaving it to Him. At that point there is little more we can do, God must take over. We must quietly await.