Most often I am a confident, self-reliant, self-assured single parent. I have many friends, including Christian men from church who often serve my children well; but every now and then I am humbled with the realization that it's hard being a single mom and that I'm not always enough for them. Tonight would be one of those moments of realization.
Having recently overcome a life-long struggle with "needing" to be in a relationship, I am now faced with the conundrum of secretly longing for the kind of support for myself and guidance for my boys that can only come from married life. For the first time in my life, I need no man in order to feel fulfilled, aside from Christ. (And I say that boastfully, after 30 years of pure idiocy in the matter!) But in those rare moments of frailty and inadequacy I painfully acknowledge that I need help. I no longer crave for companionship to fill some emptiness that exists from within, but rather crave for the security of backup, the assurance of Godly leadership for my boys, and even down to the mundane man-work that I rarely am just unable to accomplish on my own.
I am prideful. It's hard for me to reach out to others and ask for help. And that makes those rare moments of legitimate need so unbearable. And as gracious and well-intended as those are who do serve in some capacity, I am again forced to face the reality that sometimes it really falls short of what I am really needing.
But in my hurt pride, fighting through my tears, I must ask myself if I trust my God to provide everything I need. And in that I find the grace to ask for forgiveness for my obstinacy and the courage to humble myself to ask Him to provide (as opposed to not asking but expecting).
Lord, I pray with confidence and expectation that you will provide for my every need, and pray for the conviction of my heart in that confidence. I pray that you equip me for every important task you have set before me and pray for realization and grace when I fall short of that. I pray that you use these moments to humble me to seek your help always instead of my natural tendency to take it all on and refuse to ask for help. But most of all, I pray that whatever lie ahead, you help me to be content in every circumstance, even the ones that expose my weakness.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Effective Praying
Have you ever prayed to God and felt like it wasn't answered? Have you ever doubted or wondered if your prayers are even heard and acknowledged? If we are all honest with ourselves, we could admit that at some point in our lives, we have felt this way and may still. The truth to this cry is found in Ephesians 1:15-23, which I will break down here in a moment; but essentially it's the idea that that God is not disconnected from us, he is not some cosmic being looking down on the earth with mild disdain or indifference at what is happening; but rather, His full glory and power are waiting to be released to us through prayer. "You do not have because you do not ask." - James 4:2
Satan attacks us most in our life through the power of attack and deception. He attacks our beliefs and attempts to deceive us from the truth. This area is the #1 area he is focused on in believers; to minimize our knowledge and understanding of how God moves through our prayer. If we feel our prayers are ignored, if we feel praying is ineffective or even if we don't assign the proper power to prayer, Satan is doing his job effectively in our lives. I'll say it again, he absolutely DOES NOT want us to have revelation of the power of prayer. Well, you might say, I have prayed and asked for things, and I don't feel like God answers me. There are any number of reasons that may contribute to that assumption. Many believers have a wrong understanding of God's sovereignty, which is His supreme power and authority over time, space, the earth and our lives. They see God's sovereignty in an unbiblical way by trusting him to do what he requires us to do. We cannot do God's part, and He will not do ours. This happens when we are spiritually lazy and we claim God's sovereignty. God will release His power in the measure in which it is asked for.
Why does God require us to pray in order for Him to move on our behalf? God already knows everything, right? Why doesn't he just give it to us? Well, if we were robots, controlled by God, things might play out that way. But he gave us free will, and in that will, we have to decide whether to choose Him or not, whether to trust Him or not, and whether to be willing to go to Him in prayer with our requests. God's greatest desire is to have intimate relationship with His creations. So, he designed us to have longings intended to bring us to Him; and he wants us to ask Him for what we need because that is how our relationship is built with Him. We aren't telling Him anything He doesn't already know by praying; but it is the act of praying, our willingness to seek Him and trust Him to provide for us that creates a relationship. If we didn't have a reason to talk to Him, how much more would we ignore and turn away from Him than we already do?
I want to circle back around to feeling our prayers are ignored or ineffective, because this is a serious problem, even for some fervent believers. Feeling this way affects our ability to get closer to God and drives us further away. The most important thing for you to know is that God loves you and that He is waiting to release the same power he gave to Jesus, on this earth, as a man, to us, if only we will ask [Eph. 1:19-20]. If you pray to God and think or feel like He doesn't hear you or care, you're doing it wrong. I'm kidding to a degree; there's no such thing as "praying wrong", God hears every voice, every cry. But, there is such a thing as not believing in the power of your prayer. You can pray and still be insecure about whether He hears you or not, whether he cares, whether he will answer you. There is a discernible difference between having confidence when you pray that God hears you, that He loves you, and that your prayer is both important and received, and NOT having that confidence. But if you don't know how to listen for His answer, you can be left feeling that way.
To be effective in our prayer we need to understand when to pray, about what to pray, and how to listen for his responses. When do we pray and what do we pray about? Some people pray for things or circumstances, give me this or change this. Some pray when they have a crisis or tragedy in their lives, or when something good happens. And some still pray for others, asking God to intervene in their lives. The right answer is all of the above. First and foremost in our prayer lives is to pray and worship God, acknowledging is grace and love, thanking him for all that we value in our lives. Next, we pray for ourselves. We pray for circumstances we need changed, we pray for weaknesses we have, we pray for forgiveness of specific sins, we pray for our increased ability to receive Him. God shares the deeper things of his heart to those who are hungry for it. If you see God merely as a means to get, get, get, he will hear your prayer, but he won't reveal the deeper things of His heart. We also pray for others we love and for our enemies. If you want to neutralize a situation with an enemy, pray for them. It will change everything.
Our goal is to use prayer to move us from a distant God encounter, maybe he hears me, to prayer that moves you because you feel him in you and moving on your behalf. The beginning step is just to pray. Pray about everything. If you're angry at your boss, pray. If you're sick or worried or anxious, pray. If your car breaks down, pray. If you're frustrated because you're trying to complete a mundane task and can't, pray! Pray, pray, pray and pray. And when you're done praying, pray some more. The moral of the story is, God hears every prayer. He cares. He is close. He wants to help you. But for him to move on your behalf, you have to do things his way, cause he's in charge. That's just the way it goes. (It's really not that bad, because he knows everything from beginning to end, he already knows how it's all gonna work out, so you CAN trust him).
But how do you hear him? How do you feel him? You have to dedicate time to him. God speaks to us in many ways, but the predominant way he answers us is through His word, the living word of God, the bible. Pray and read his word. If you don't understand most of it, read it anyway and ask for understanding. If it's boring, read it anyway and ask him to engage you in it. But there's one key to this that many are uncomfortable with, and it's the sin part. See, God loves us more than any person on the planet could, ever. And with love comes discipline. Some of our sin is so damaging, it needs immediate confrontation. Some, not so much. If you're a parent, you can understand this. If your 3 yr. old is about to touch a hot stove, your reaction is indicative of the imminent danger he is in. If he spills his milk, your reaction will be appropriate to that. The bottom line is, as you begin to pray and read his word, he begins to reveal it to you. And he will begin to reveal your most pressing issues to you, those that warrant addressing now. When he shows you a truth, just like a parent scolding a child, he expects you to acknowledge the truth and put forth your best effort at retaining and implementing that truth into your life.
And your reaction to that means the difference in getting closer to God or moving away from him, it's that plain and simple. Keeping that truth perfect in your life is impossible, we are human, we sin. But setting your heart to obey that new truth, and praying for grace to improve in your obedience is what makes the difference. This shows God you aren't rebellious, that you have set your heart toward him and he begins to show you more and more, and to increase your capacity to receive from him. Until we cross this threshold of initial acceptance and moving our hearts to obey, we cannot get past the dullness of religion and move into the vitality of faith. You can pray every waking moment and read your bible from sun up to sun down, but if he reveals a truth to you and you don't accept it wholeheartedly and set your heart to obey it, (in your frailty and pitiful human state of incompleteness, yes; but set your heart to obey it nonetheless) you cannot come to know Christ on a deeper level and you will remain spiritually dull. And in a state of spiritual dullness, we are weak in our efforts to avoid sin and sin is what separates us from God. Setting our hearts to obey the things he shows us in his word is what closes the circle of intimacy and allows us to go deeper into the things of God. Pray. Read the word. Obey it. You will fail. Miserably. Over and over. God doesn't care. He knows you will, he created you. What he cares about is your effort. Setting your heart to do his will no matter what it costs you. Salvation is a free gift to all who will accept it. But intimacy requires a relationship, and as with all relationships, it requires effort to make it work.
Make no mistake, regardless of what you believe, you serve one of two Gods in this life; the uncreated God who spoke the heavens and the earth into existence, or Satan. And while you may not have set up a temple in your house, drawn a pentagram on the floor, lit some candles and gotten on your knees to serve him, denying God IS serving the devil. If the devil can't get you to worship him directly, he'll get you to worship yourself. Same end result. When you put yourself before God, you are making yourself an idol. When you have a revelation of this and it shakes you to your core, you are at a turning point. There is no earthly truth, possession, knowledge, circumstance, birth right or pleasure that can fix all that is wrong with you. We are all broken; we are all seeking love, acceptance, acknowledgement; we want to belong, to be accepted, to be important. We are all waiting for "what if"; if I have this, then I'll be happy, or "if" this happens, things will be better. We have spent our lives clamoring after the cheap fixes to all of our longings, only to be let down, again and again and again. And then we resign ourselves to the belief that that's just life. THAT. IS. A. LIE. That is the biggest lie of all lies. The one that keeps us distracted until its too late. Intimacy with God is the only way we repair ourselves. It's not a bandaid, it's not neosporin ointment or an aspirin; but it is deep healing that is transformative. We die to our flesh and are born again in the spirit.
How much effort have you put in trying to fix certain problems, trying to find certain answers, trying to change certain behaviors, stop certain cycles of choices in your life? The truth is, we are stubborn, obstinate beings, set on doing it our way and set on the idea that we know it all. It is not until we are completely broken that we are willing to cry out for help in our weakness. Aren't you tired of hitting the same brick wall? He is waiting. And he has the answer to every problem you have had and will ever have. But you have to surrender to him, trust that he knows best, let him lead you, give up your control. It is so worth it. I am a satisfied customer.
In Ephesians 1:15-23, Paul is in prison, writing to his church in Ephesis. And he has a revelation of the power of prayer. The holy spirit reveals to him that he needs to pray for intimacy with God for his people, that he needs to pray for the eyes of their hearts to be opened further, he prays that they will have revelation of God's plan for their lives and that they know the glory of being Jesus' inheritance. But he also prays that his church has a corporate revelation that God is willing and desires to release upon them (us) the power in which he bestowed on Christ, the man, on the cross and in the resurrection and ascension. Now let that sink in. The power that God used to resurrect and ascend Jesus to His right hand, is the SAME power God wishes to give to us, if we only ask for it. This is what the holy spirit reveals to Paul in jail. That the power of God is released in the full measure in which we ask for it. That is inconceivable! That God is not only willing, but eagerly waits for us to ask him for his power and glory to be released to us. I want you to have a revelation of the idea of this, because it's real. And if you can have some measure of faith that it is real, that will motivate you to seek out God in prayer and in his word at a deeper level.
God doesn't want you to live life in misery, in unfulfillment, in half-heartedness, in emptiness. But it is a choice, one only we can make. God will not choose for us, although I think we'd all be better off if he did. Fullness of life doesn't come from enough friends or enough love or enough money or the right job or the right circumstances, it comes from him and only him. There is no other way. He gave us free will, but he also created us to be incomplete without him. And that dissatisfaction is intended to drive us to him. I am so happy that I came to know this personally. He has fixed things in me that have been broken my entire life, and then gone on to fix things I didn't even know were broken. And he's not done, I'll always be a work in progress this side of eternity. But my heart a has penetrating pleasure, peace and joy that no person, no circumstance can take away from me. And it is through my overwhelmed sense of gratitude that I share these things with others, in the hopes that they will find what I have found.
Satan attacks us most in our life through the power of attack and deception. He attacks our beliefs and attempts to deceive us from the truth. This area is the #1 area he is focused on in believers; to minimize our knowledge and understanding of how God moves through our prayer. If we feel our prayers are ignored, if we feel praying is ineffective or even if we don't assign the proper power to prayer, Satan is doing his job effectively in our lives. I'll say it again, he absolutely DOES NOT want us to have revelation of the power of prayer. Well, you might say, I have prayed and asked for things, and I don't feel like God answers me. There are any number of reasons that may contribute to that assumption. Many believers have a wrong understanding of God's sovereignty, which is His supreme power and authority over time, space, the earth and our lives. They see God's sovereignty in an unbiblical way by trusting him to do what he requires us to do. We cannot do God's part, and He will not do ours. This happens when we are spiritually lazy and we claim God's sovereignty. God will release His power in the measure in which it is asked for.
Why does God require us to pray in order for Him to move on our behalf? God already knows everything, right? Why doesn't he just give it to us? Well, if we were robots, controlled by God, things might play out that way. But he gave us free will, and in that will, we have to decide whether to choose Him or not, whether to trust Him or not, and whether to be willing to go to Him in prayer with our requests. God's greatest desire is to have intimate relationship with His creations. So, he designed us to have longings intended to bring us to Him; and he wants us to ask Him for what we need because that is how our relationship is built with Him. We aren't telling Him anything He doesn't already know by praying; but it is the act of praying, our willingness to seek Him and trust Him to provide for us that creates a relationship. If we didn't have a reason to talk to Him, how much more would we ignore and turn away from Him than we already do?
I want to circle back around to feeling our prayers are ignored or ineffective, because this is a serious problem, even for some fervent believers. Feeling this way affects our ability to get closer to God and drives us further away. The most important thing for you to know is that God loves you and that He is waiting to release the same power he gave to Jesus, on this earth, as a man, to us, if only we will ask [Eph. 1:19-20]. If you pray to God and think or feel like He doesn't hear you or care, you're doing it wrong. I'm kidding to a degree; there's no such thing as "praying wrong", God hears every voice, every cry. But, there is such a thing as not believing in the power of your prayer. You can pray and still be insecure about whether He hears you or not, whether he cares, whether he will answer you. There is a discernible difference between having confidence when you pray that God hears you, that He loves you, and that your prayer is both important and received, and NOT having that confidence. But if you don't know how to listen for His answer, you can be left feeling that way.
To be effective in our prayer we need to understand when to pray, about what to pray, and how to listen for his responses. When do we pray and what do we pray about? Some people pray for things or circumstances, give me this or change this. Some pray when they have a crisis or tragedy in their lives, or when something good happens. And some still pray for others, asking God to intervene in their lives. The right answer is all of the above. First and foremost in our prayer lives is to pray and worship God, acknowledging is grace and love, thanking him for all that we value in our lives. Next, we pray for ourselves. We pray for circumstances we need changed, we pray for weaknesses we have, we pray for forgiveness of specific sins, we pray for our increased ability to receive Him. God shares the deeper things of his heart to those who are hungry for it. If you see God merely as a means to get, get, get, he will hear your prayer, but he won't reveal the deeper things of His heart. We also pray for others we love and for our enemies. If you want to neutralize a situation with an enemy, pray for them. It will change everything.
Our goal is to use prayer to move us from a distant God encounter, maybe he hears me, to prayer that moves you because you feel him in you and moving on your behalf. The beginning step is just to pray. Pray about everything. If you're angry at your boss, pray. If you're sick or worried or anxious, pray. If your car breaks down, pray. If you're frustrated because you're trying to complete a mundane task and can't, pray! Pray, pray, pray and pray. And when you're done praying, pray some more. The moral of the story is, God hears every prayer. He cares. He is close. He wants to help you. But for him to move on your behalf, you have to do things his way, cause he's in charge. That's just the way it goes. (It's really not that bad, because he knows everything from beginning to end, he already knows how it's all gonna work out, so you CAN trust him).
But how do you hear him? How do you feel him? You have to dedicate time to him. God speaks to us in many ways, but the predominant way he answers us is through His word, the living word of God, the bible. Pray and read his word. If you don't understand most of it, read it anyway and ask for understanding. If it's boring, read it anyway and ask him to engage you in it. But there's one key to this that many are uncomfortable with, and it's the sin part. See, God loves us more than any person on the planet could, ever. And with love comes discipline. Some of our sin is so damaging, it needs immediate confrontation. Some, not so much. If you're a parent, you can understand this. If your 3 yr. old is about to touch a hot stove, your reaction is indicative of the imminent danger he is in. If he spills his milk, your reaction will be appropriate to that. The bottom line is, as you begin to pray and read his word, he begins to reveal it to you. And he will begin to reveal your most pressing issues to you, those that warrant addressing now. When he shows you a truth, just like a parent scolding a child, he expects you to acknowledge the truth and put forth your best effort at retaining and implementing that truth into your life.
And your reaction to that means the difference in getting closer to God or moving away from him, it's that plain and simple. Keeping that truth perfect in your life is impossible, we are human, we sin. But setting your heart to obey that new truth, and praying for grace to improve in your obedience is what makes the difference. This shows God you aren't rebellious, that you have set your heart toward him and he begins to show you more and more, and to increase your capacity to receive from him. Until we cross this threshold of initial acceptance and moving our hearts to obey, we cannot get past the dullness of religion and move into the vitality of faith. You can pray every waking moment and read your bible from sun up to sun down, but if he reveals a truth to you and you don't accept it wholeheartedly and set your heart to obey it, (in your frailty and pitiful human state of incompleteness, yes; but set your heart to obey it nonetheless) you cannot come to know Christ on a deeper level and you will remain spiritually dull. And in a state of spiritual dullness, we are weak in our efforts to avoid sin and sin is what separates us from God. Setting our hearts to obey the things he shows us in his word is what closes the circle of intimacy and allows us to go deeper into the things of God. Pray. Read the word. Obey it. You will fail. Miserably. Over and over. God doesn't care. He knows you will, he created you. What he cares about is your effort. Setting your heart to do his will no matter what it costs you. Salvation is a free gift to all who will accept it. But intimacy requires a relationship, and as with all relationships, it requires effort to make it work.
Make no mistake, regardless of what you believe, you serve one of two Gods in this life; the uncreated God who spoke the heavens and the earth into existence, or Satan. And while you may not have set up a temple in your house, drawn a pentagram on the floor, lit some candles and gotten on your knees to serve him, denying God IS serving the devil. If the devil can't get you to worship him directly, he'll get you to worship yourself. Same end result. When you put yourself before God, you are making yourself an idol. When you have a revelation of this and it shakes you to your core, you are at a turning point. There is no earthly truth, possession, knowledge, circumstance, birth right or pleasure that can fix all that is wrong with you. We are all broken; we are all seeking love, acceptance, acknowledgement; we want to belong, to be accepted, to be important. We are all waiting for "what if"; if I have this, then I'll be happy, or "if" this happens, things will be better. We have spent our lives clamoring after the cheap fixes to all of our longings, only to be let down, again and again and again. And then we resign ourselves to the belief that that's just life. THAT. IS. A. LIE. That is the biggest lie of all lies. The one that keeps us distracted until its too late. Intimacy with God is the only way we repair ourselves. It's not a bandaid, it's not neosporin ointment or an aspirin; but it is deep healing that is transformative. We die to our flesh and are born again in the spirit.
How much effort have you put in trying to fix certain problems, trying to find certain answers, trying to change certain behaviors, stop certain cycles of choices in your life? The truth is, we are stubborn, obstinate beings, set on doing it our way and set on the idea that we know it all. It is not until we are completely broken that we are willing to cry out for help in our weakness. Aren't you tired of hitting the same brick wall? He is waiting. And he has the answer to every problem you have had and will ever have. But you have to surrender to him, trust that he knows best, let him lead you, give up your control. It is so worth it. I am a satisfied customer.
In Ephesians 1:15-23, Paul is in prison, writing to his church in Ephesis. And he has a revelation of the power of prayer. The holy spirit reveals to him that he needs to pray for intimacy with God for his people, that he needs to pray for the eyes of their hearts to be opened further, he prays that they will have revelation of God's plan for their lives and that they know the glory of being Jesus' inheritance. But he also prays that his church has a corporate revelation that God is willing and desires to release upon them (us) the power in which he bestowed on Christ, the man, on the cross and in the resurrection and ascension. Now let that sink in. The power that God used to resurrect and ascend Jesus to His right hand, is the SAME power God wishes to give to us, if we only ask for it. This is what the holy spirit reveals to Paul in jail. That the power of God is released in the full measure in which we ask for it. That is inconceivable! That God is not only willing, but eagerly waits for us to ask him for his power and glory to be released to us. I want you to have a revelation of the idea of this, because it's real. And if you can have some measure of faith that it is real, that will motivate you to seek out God in prayer and in his word at a deeper level.
God doesn't want you to live life in misery, in unfulfillment, in half-heartedness, in emptiness. But it is a choice, one only we can make. God will not choose for us, although I think we'd all be better off if he did. Fullness of life doesn't come from enough friends or enough love or enough money or the right job or the right circumstances, it comes from him and only him. There is no other way. He gave us free will, but he also created us to be incomplete without him. And that dissatisfaction is intended to drive us to him. I am so happy that I came to know this personally. He has fixed things in me that have been broken my entire life, and then gone on to fix things I didn't even know were broken. And he's not done, I'll always be a work in progress this side of eternity. But my heart a has penetrating pleasure, peace and joy that no person, no circumstance can take away from me. And it is through my overwhelmed sense of gratitude that I share these things with others, in the hopes that they will find what I have found.
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