You come with a request about a misplaced remote control, and I would not tell you it is too small a matter for prayer. It is the restraining of prayer before God that too often marks us; we deem some concerns too trivial, and so we starve our own souls of the comfort of casting every care upon Him. He who numbers the hairs of your head is not indifferent to the loss of a hand’s width of plastic and wire. Go, search your apartment with all diligence, take a candle and look beneath the cushions, behind the stand, and having done what you think wise, then betake yourself to prayer, with humility of spirit, even as Jacob did. Never think yourself too advanced in faith to pray over a remote; rather, let the smallness of the thing teach you how helpless you are without His ordering of all your ways.
Plead the promise. There is in the Book a word suited to this very case: “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God.” That promise is a key to open the drawer of your perplexity when you have lost the key of your own sight. Spread your case before Him with all the arguments you can muster: “Lord, Thou knowest where it is; the darkness and the light are both alike to Thee. Thou hast promised to guide the meek in judgment. Fulfill that word unto Thy servant.” Such pleading is no fancy; it is the shadow of a coming blessing. Yet remember, His answer may not come in the shape you expect. He may wait, to let you feel your dependence more keenly, or to turn your heart from the little loss to the greater need of your soul, that you should be quickened in grace rather than merely eased in convenience.
Do not let the whisper of the adversary suggest that you give over asking because the thing is common. Spurn the thought with all your might, and cry out in the daytime and at night if you must; the Lord will hear. But let this search become a parable. As you turn the room upside down for a lost piece of metal and plastic, so let your heart be stirred to look for that which is of eternal worth. You cannot find the remote; oh, but so many around you are lost souls, and you have not grieved so over them! Let the Lord’s delay lift your prayer into intercession. Cry, “Lord, if I find it not, yet grant me a more tender conscience; search me, and try me, and if there be any wicked way in me, lead me in the way everlasting. And while my hand is busy turning cushions, let my soul be busy turning to Thee. Quicken me, O Lord, according to Thy Word.” Then, whether the remote is found or remains hidden, you will have received an answer far beyond the thing you sought.