Prayer. What a topic. We are invited to pray to God and ask for his help. Yet we understand so little about how all of this "prayer stuff" works. The bible paints a very clear picture that we are to be God dependent, and that's best demonstrated when we pray.But I must tell you that, after over 40 years of faith, I still have problems with the issue of prayer.....I don't have all the answers. When discussing this topic I find that I come to the response, "I don't know" far more than I would like. I pray for people all the time, and don't always get my prayers answered. The truth is that I don't know what God is really up to in the life of that person. The answer to my prayer might be "yes", "no" or "in a little while we will do that". I feel like a blind man at times as I try to pray "in God's will". And, like the cartoon, I hear myself too often whining.
I want to see answers to prayer, we all do. So like so many prayers I have heard I pray "safe prayers" like- "Lord, be with Mary." The truth is that if Mary is a Christ follower he has promised to never leave her, so I can just see the Lord waiting for me to pray, hearing this prayer and finding there is nothing he can do with the prayer....he's already doing it!
My goal in my life is to no longer pray "safe prayers", but to pray at the edge of my comfort zone, to pray big prayers, prayers for healing, miracles, changed lives, you know BIG things. Now I know that when I pray that way I won't always see answers, but I may...and when I do I am challenged to pray even further out in my faith.
For me, I plan to stop whining, to stop praying safe prayers, and to be bold. I have had this goal for a long time, but find that I easily revert to the safety of "Lord, be with George today"...and I miss the chance to see what God, working through my prayers, could do.
I want to close with a passage that has challenged the church for centuries. These are Jesus' words, but they are big. I don't intend to explain them, I just want you to read them:
Joh 14:13 "Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
Joh 14:14 "If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.
5 comments:
I'm so glad you wrote about prayer. It is so confusing! I know it shouldn't be, after all, isn't it just talking to God? But sometimes I feel so stupid when I pray. For example, when I pray for my unsaved friends I feel silly because who more than God wants His children to know Him?! He wants nothing more than for them to come to Him; it's not as if He's waiting on me and my feeble request in order to grant them their salvation. I really don't know how to pray for my unsaved friends or neighbors, but I've started to pray that I could somehow share God's love to them or that God's love would be shown through me. How do you pray for someone's salvation? SM
Or how about the prayer that starts: Lord, you say that wherever two or more are gathered in your name, you are there......
I know he is with me always, when others are there or when I'm all alone.
I *think* that we tend to say things off the top of our heads without running it through our grid of "what I believe and know to be true". Its sloppy thoughts and I know I struggle with just knowing its about the relationship and not a formula.
The thing I have been having problems with are that the things I am asking for, wishing for, pleading for, are so large I can't put it into words. For example, my aunt is very ill and my uncle is her caretaker. She will never get well, we can only hope she is comfortable. He tries so hard to take care of her every need that he forgets about himself. When he calls me and tells me the latest problem or medical mystery that has befallen my aunt, my heart aches so badly! I want to take away her pain, his frustration, the whole stinkin' mess. I don't want to say "Your will be done" or other cookie cutter prayers, but I can't find the words because I feel so consumed with pain. I believe, correct me if I am wrong, that is when the Holy Spirit interviens on our behalf and translates my pain into prayers to God.
I try to not always come to the throne with a whine or a gimme please. I try to go boldly and thankfully but I have gotta tell ya, it gets really tough some days.
I understand what you are saying when you say that you want to be able to step out and ask for more than "Be with Mary at this difficult time, blah blah, etc." I 'd just like to once be able to put into words what my soul wants to say. It seems to me that when the pain is the greatest, the need is the greatest, but the words that float across my mind don't even begin to cover what I'd like to say.
Mike, you've said it so well. I have been struggling with the same things all have mentioned and you just encouraged me to simply thank Him for the things He is already doing or says He is doing or will do (never leaving nor forsaking, calling us to Himself, seeking the lost, etc.) and maybe do a better job of getting into someone else's shoes when I pray for them and asking that God will give them eyes to see His mighty work in their lives or that they will call on God in their time of need. Or maybe that God hold back His hand of wrath from them, or that He have mercy on a particular individual. Or that God will fill them with all wisdom and knowledge of God, or with the fear of God which is the beginning of knowledge...etc.
Like Bec, I am so glad that the Holy Spirit searches our hearts and puts into heavenly words for the Father what only our hearts know. (In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will. Romans 8:26-27 I love that...when my heart is aching sometimes I just sit and put myself in God's lap and know that the Holy Spirit is talking to God for me at right that very minute in words I could NEVER imagine. I also love that tears can sometimes carry more meaning in prayer than my words ever could and are a language which God understands.
Oh dear, I've rambled. Thanks for the post...reminds me I wanted to go through the Bible and find all the prayers.
I also struggle with how to pray for the big things, and I love to fall back on that verse in Romans that kathy d mentioned. When one of my kids is hurt they come to me, curl up in my lap and just cry. All I can do is hold them tight and love them. They are comforted by that; they love that. When I read that verse in Romans that kathy d mentioned I too feel that I can curl up in God's lap and have a good cry, and I am comforted by that -- just as my kids are comforted by me.
Thanks Mike, and everyone else that commented.
Post a Comment