Matthew 26:53

"Or do you think that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He will provide Me with more than twelve legions of angels?"

One angel killed 185,000 of King Sennacherib's Assyrian army in a single night (cf. II Kings 19:35). Imagine the power and force of twelve legions of angels (one legion representing 6,000,... do the math)? Jesus could have asked His Father to send them down and rescue Him, demonstrating enormous and miraculous strength like the world had rarely, if ever seen. Surely doing so might have caused some to believe that He was the Messiah, perhaps even many, with history then retelling the mighty deeds of God at the Garden of Gethsemane. But no, Jesus does not pray this way. Just like He did not demand of His Father just moments before that the suffering (physical and spiritual) of the cross be removed from His destiny (cf. Matthew 26:39). Rather, Jesus always does the will of His Father (cf. John 4:34).

I sometimes pray, and perhaps rightly so, that God would pour out great power in a certain situation or circumstance. The power I ask for is supernatural, that all might see the grandeur of God. Sometimes He grants the answer to my prayer as I've asked, but often times He doesn't. Whether I pray lacking faith, I do not know. But at least here in Matthew I see that God more often than not moves through the power of weakness and the "natural" outcome of life's perceived and predictable normalcy. He's just as much at work in my routine course of life as He is in the miraculous highs of life, all the while answering prayer as He deems fit and in accordance with His will.

Today I pray for the supernatural and ask that I might see His intervention. But if He chooses to show Himself through simple and even weak means, I pray that I might see His hand at work just as much as I would had He shown Himself with phenomenal power. God is always in the business of hearing and answering prayer, and He always does it through powerful and supernatural means. My measuring stick for power just needs to be recalibrated.