how many times i have cried to God in my distress only to feel that my requests fell short of being communicated to Him...at times i have felt foolish and powerless and wondered where i went wrong...where was God? and how could i get to Him?
what i have learned...prayer is a process...and learning to pray is something that grows and deepens with practice...we can look at various aspects of prayer...but in no way can we explore the fullness of the subject...in a few short sentences...communicating with the Father is an awesome and holy event...something to be studied very seriously and without ceasing...
when i am reflecting on prayer...i like to read the psalm prayers and see how God's close friends communicated with Him...one of these examples is psalm 86...take a moment to read it...all the verses in this psalm are equally enriching...but to me...the key verse is verse 11...
and i will walk in Your truth...
give me an undivided heart...
that i may fear Your name...
the concept of this verse changed the entire way i looked at prayer...david asked for God's help in a time of great need...but he asked for God's help on God's terms...in God's truth...based on God's wisdom...
how different that is from many prayers i had offered...i frequently presented God with a long list of things i wanted done and how i wanted those things accomplished...i used a laundry-list approach to prayer...i had figured out what i needed and wanted...and i even included lists for the people around me...and many times i included a time schedule for God to use...
and then i wondered why my "prayers" weren't answered... =)
those weren't prayers...those were wish lists to make my life better...or my party bigger...so to speak...there is a vast difference between wishful thinking and prayer...even though we sometimes use then interchangeably...
when we go to God to talk...we go as friend to friend...to praise...to determine His will and His way for our life circumstances...david asked God to walk with him in truth and to give him an undivided heart so that they could be in close communion...
what a difference in motive...i don't tell God what to do...instead i talk to God in an effort to understand His way and His plan...keeping in mind that God's timetable differs from mine...He doesn't use a watch to determine the hour...He uses eternity to tell time...prayer is about establishing and maintaining a relationship...not about getting what i want...
i also note that God is all-knowing...about me...my needs...my wants...and my requests...He sees the whole picture and has the long-range plan...my perspective...on the other hand...is limited...my thinking is self-focused and short-sighted in scope...
in this period of my life...i can look back now and see clearly that if God had taken my many wish lists and answered even most of them according to my instructions...my life would be a tangled mess of desires...
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