<p>11:22 <i>And even now, I know that whatever you shall ask of God, God will give you</i>-</p><p>Martha understood the Lord's power to help, and she prayed to Him (Jn. 11:22 cp. 16:23). But she didn't make the obvious, blindingly desperate request which filled her heart: to bring Lazarus back to her. She simply stated that the Lord could do all things. And she knew He would read her spirit, and see what she wanted.</p><p>&quot;Even now&quot; hints that she did wonder if the Lord could even now raise him. Martha's hope that the Lord just might raise Lazarus was not based simply upon a vague whim that the Lord might just do her a favour this time, on this issue. &quot;Even now&quot;, <i>kai nun</i>, was a phrase she had previously heard on the lips of the Lord as He sought to explain that the realities of His future Kingdom were also capable of some present experience: &quot;But the hour comes <i>and now is </i><i>kai nun</i>, when true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit&quot; (Jn. 4:23). And most significantly Jn. 5:25: &quot;The hour comes and <i>now is</i>, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live&quot;. So her vaguely expressed request was actually a result of her attention to the Spirit words of the Lord Jesus. And thus she was in harmony with the movement of the Spirit, and the Lord's Spirit was therefore aligned with her spirit in intercession before the Father- as Romans 8 makes explicit. The powerful lesson is that prayer is heard not because of how we verbalize things, the word choice we achieve- for that would be some kind of paganism, whereby certain words elicit Divine responses. As we read in this context in Romans 8, &quot;we know not how to pray as we ought&quot;. &quot;The Lord the Spirit&quot; (2 Cor. 3:18 RV) looks upon the spirit, the deepest heart desires, and responds to them rather than to our clumsy attempts to formulate those deep desires as words and sentences.</p><p>She wasn't asking for a resurrection, she left it to the Lord to decide how best to respond; and in doing so reveals a parade example to us all. Clearly it was her unspoken, vaguely conceived and unverbalized desire that the Lord would raise Lazarus immediately. And the Lord (as explained in Romans 8) took this unspoken desire of her spirit and revealed it to the Father. Romans 8 says that He does the same for us today.</p><p>&quot;Whatever you shall ask of God, God will give you&quot; are the very words the Lord elsewhere used urging <i>us</i> that whatever <i>we </i>ask will be <i>given</i> (Mt. 21:22; Jn. 16:23). Perhaps her emphasis was upon the word &quot;you&quot;. Martha clearly felt an inadequacy in prayer. Like us, she wanted the Lord to do it all for her. The whole story reveals that such feelings of inadequacy are unnecessary. Because her spirit, her deepest heart desires, were what the Lord would raise Lazarus, and this was indeed read by the Lord as prayer.</p>