“He is just and having salvation” Zechariah 9:9

Writers are notorious for having little filler words they need to eliminate from their text to tighten their writing. These are words like: well, so, and my personal favorite—just.

I love the word just and can’t help using it… excessively. But through effort and attention I’ve learned to spot and remove it (most of the time).

There is one place I haven’t been as successful in removing it. And I’m feeling a growing conviction that I need to.

The place I’m speaking of is in my prayers. I hear myself praying that God would just do this or that.

I know that God is a just God, but that’s not what I’m saying when I ask Him to just watch over my family. How many times have I heard myself saying “Lord I just ask….” 

As if I were begging for a meager share from a stingy God.

God is referred to as a just God. 

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your King is coming to you;
He is just and having salvation,
Lowly and riding on a donkey,
A colt, the foal of a donkey.

Zechariah 9:9

But that’s not what I mean when I find myself with a just in my prayer.

In our modern usage, the word is used more common as an adverb implying a measure of small portion—as in barely. Just another bite, just one more sit up (although I’ve never personally said that last one).

When we say God is just, we are proclaiming Him to be righteous, a trustworthy dispenser of justice.

But when I pray and ask God for a just something, I’m unconsciously asking for a small measure of what I desire.

God is a just God, but He is not a God of small measures. He is the God of abundantly more than we can imagine or ask. 

And our just God has stated that we have not because we ask not. 

You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.” James 4:2

We may not have because we don’t ask. Or we may not have because we ask amiss.

Asking amiss is asking for what is outside the will of God, wanting something that doesn’t line up with His word, or something that isn’t glorifying to Him.

Like asking for too little when what He wants to bless us with His abundance (don’t hear prosperity gospel in these… the abundant blessing is what He knows we need not what we think we want).

Our God does not specialize in just. He’s the One who created the Heaven’s and the earth and all that is in it. He can part a sea and raise the dead. He can handle our full request without any caveat thrown in.

Let’s stop praying as if we were requesting that meager share from a stingy God. Instead, let’s come boldly before the throne as beloved children of a gracious and loving Father.