Which Thou Knowest Not

“Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.” Jeremiah 33:3

This may be the best known and most often quoted prayer promise in all of scripture. God says that if we will call upon Him, He will answer us. It is comforting to know that God will answer our prayers, but sometimes this promise is misunderstood. Many Christians read this verse and think that God is saying that He will give us exactly what we expect Him to give us no matter what it is. It is easy to look at prayer solely from our perspective. We make a list of things that we think we need and things that we would like to see happen and we ask God for them. We think that in order for God to keep His promise, He must give us what we have imagined and also something that is above and beyond what we imagined. This is how we would define “great and mighty things, which thou knowest not,” and that is where our understanding fails. We are asking God for things that we know, but He wants to give us things that we don’t know. We are asking God for things that we think are great, but He wants to give us “mighty” things that He knows are great. Sometimes we are so focused on the things that we want that we do not realize that He is answering with things that are better for us than we could have ever imagined. Sometimes we fail to call upon Him. It may be because we are busy, distracted, lazy, or even sinful. He is waiting for us to call, and He wants to answer. He wants to give us the great and mighty things that we don’t know about, but we are not ready to receive them until we are willing to call upon Him in prayer.