As the third part of my spiritual discipline series, this is one of the disciplines that I have been more attuned to lately. I have also noticed that God has taught me a lot lately. We could probably go on for chapters talking about this, but I wanted to give a brief synopsis of what I have been learning.
It is first and foremost a conversation with
God: When I think about prayer, it is
not necessarily a formal or rigid process.
When praying with others, I will sometimes joke around while praying and
talk to him like he is my neighbor.
There is no specific formula, you just start chatting with Him and share
what’s on your mind. What I have found
is that most people who spend a lot of time talking to God know his voice and
know his heart very well. Just like any
relationship, the more you communicate the better you understand the other
person.
2.
There is power in our words: Recently I have
struggled with the notion that my prayers are ineffective and that they don’t
change people’s lives, and it affected me to the point where I was going back
and forth on whether or not I should join a prayer ministry. What I have learned is that I have the power
of life and death in my tongue (Proverbs 18:21), therefore I am responsible for
praying life into people and into myself.
Whether or not people accept it is a different story, but even if I am
not seeing major or immediate results, I can be confident that I am saying
something that is beneficial to the person.
3.
Sometimes I’m on the wrong channel: I can be so guilty of this! When I
think about prayer that I think is getting unanswered, it could be getting
answered in a different way. For
instance, I ask for patience and it seems that every irritable situation comes
up. God never handed me patience, he
allowed me to go through tough situations where I can work on myself and grow
into the man that he wants me to be.
4.
God is more concerned about my character than my
comfort: Growing up I was taught that God works
on a reward system. If I have the faith,
he gives me what I want. At one point I struggled with school stress, depression, injury, and
the effects of manipulation, and I was being told that I was not blessed because I
lacked faith. I was looking for the comfortable life. I realized that I was way off. If I ever have a bad day, I think about what Paul had to endure (2 Corinthians 11:16-25), it was a nightmare! If God allowed that to happen to Paul, then it could happen to me. But God was shaping him into the man that he needed him to be, and I understand that God is interested in my character as well. In the past I was asking God for a comfortable life instead of asking for
his comforter, the Holy Spirit. This is why I now ask for the Holy Spirit and
I ask for wisdom, patience, and understanding for God allowing my circumstance
to happen. I may not like it, but I am
willing to be conformed to his will.
5.
Sometimes an answer is on the way, but I am just not
patient enough: Often times God answers
as yes, no, or not yet. The problem is
that sometimes answers take years to come about, and we as American’s want it
right away. God does answer prayer, but
he has the scope of eternity in mind so it may take longer than expected. Instead of trying get mad and give up on God,
I will keep asking for that answer and I will keep praying for others and
myself knowing that he will answer. For
those who have been praying for physical or spiritual healing, know that
healing is a process, not an event. That
is one thing that I had to learn because otherwise my expectations would not be
met. In most cases, prayer is a
continual need and is a process that usually has small improvements over time.
6.
When I refuse to communicate with him, I cut
myself off from him: During one period of my life I decided that I was done
with God. Instead, I should have tried
to refuse to communicate with the negative people in my life and work on
forgiving those that hurt me in the church.
I know that it grieved God that I was not talking with him, but he also
grieved the wounds in my heart and the fact that I misunderstood cold and
distant Christians as him being cold and distant. In return, I became cold and distant as
well. It wasn’t until I had Godly
Christian people in my life who modeled Godly love that I realized that I
wanted to communicate with him and know him better.
7.
My choices can often interfere with God
answering my prayers: During another
rough part of my life, I was trying to seek God but unwilling to change certain
aspects of my life. I found that I was
like David looking at Bathsheba. I was
supposed to be out to war with my men, but instead I was in the wrong place and
I was staring at something that could set me back for years if I was not
careful. Friendships soured, the job
situation was bad because I didn’t feel at peace and it gnawed at me, the
ministry I was in became dysfunctional and harmful, and I was not liking the
man I was becoming. Worst of all, I was
feeling cut off and lost. So what did I
do? I got rid of the job because it was
holding me back from God answering a prayer for something greater and it wasn’t
providing for me anyway. I tuned out the
negative voices so I could try and hear Godly voices better. I quit the ministry and just worked on getting
myself right. I read books from a
variety of authors with a variety of perspectives that helped me reconstruct my
life. The bottom line was that what I
was doing was not working and interfering with the work of God, so I
continually made changes until he had room to work.
8.
“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.” What am I
asking for?: When you look at what Jesus
taught his disciples in the Sermon on the Mount, here is how it looks:
Revering
God
Asking for
his kingdom to come and his will to be done
Provisions
for the day, be it spiritual or physical
Forgive us
and help us forgive others
Keep us
safe from temptation
Keep us
safe from evil
Recognizing
that he is sovereign and holy
After
reading that, I feel guilty at times because I do not always ask for those things. I have made it a point to pray with these
points in mind in my alone time. That being said, I have a long way to go but
I hope to make changes.
9.
I need to put myself in a position to see prayer
answered: Whether it is a job, a spouse,
healing, change in character, or whatever, I always cringe when people say,
“Well God will bring this along for me.” I like their faith, but it is not
inappropriate for me to turn in my resume, seek counsel, read books, etc. while
waiting for the prayer to be answered.
The truth is that God works through many avenues, not just miracles. As I like to say, if the Israelites never
left Egypt, they would have never seen the miracle of a parting sea. Therefore I have to remember to try to be
active so that I can create opportunities for God to move on my prayers.
10. God really does care. He already knows, and my doubts, frustrations,
or anger does not shock him. I admit,
sometimes I get angry at life and I talk with him about it. For the longest time I was afraid to talk to
him a certain way because I did not want to offend him. But here’s the thing: HE ALREADY KNOWS! One of the most real moments of my life came
by me yelling in prayer with tears streaming down my face. I was so upset at my life falling apart and I
felt abandoned by God, and then the next day he answered me time and time again
through other people. I can personally
attest to this idea, and I want you to never be afraid to go before him in
prayer. He loves you deeply, he wants to
free you from bondage, help you find your way, and he even wants to hear about your
day. He wants our friendship, and he wants to talk with us. Never forget that.
No comments:
Post a Comment