An idea regarding prayer has been circulating through my thoughts in this season. When that happens, I know there’s something God wants me to understand.
And so, I go there with Him in my thoughts. I invite God. Invite God, who is my Father in heaven. I invite God, who is Jesus, my Savior. I invite God, who is Holy Spirit living within me. I invite God to converse with me about this thought.
“I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know Him better.”
Ephesians 1:17
He loves it when I take my thoughts to Him for sorting. He delights to sift with me. Father God enjoys teaching His children and takes great delight in watching the light bulb come on within our minds and hearts.
So, you see, I have people in my life who are really hurting. I have people in my life who are greatly rejoicing as well. And absolutely I believe that it is good to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. It is scriptural in fact.
But those who are hurting tug at my heart in a deep way. Often they come to mind. And I find myself asking God “to do something”. At some point in my pleading, I hear myself asking God to be who He already is in His sovereign nature. Sometimes I recognize that I am asking God to do what He naturally does because He is who He is.
Do you ever hear yourself ask or even beg God in this way?
“Dear God please bring peace to _________. Please comfort ________. Oh God do for ______ and be with ________. Father, please intervene for ________.”
I’m not trying to down grade our prayers. God is not offended, annoyed or even angered by our pleading for ____________. He delights in His creation calling out to Him for help.
And so, if I am listening along with pleading, at some point I will recognize my Father Comforter’s voice whispering within me similar words as these…
“Sweetheart, I hear you, and I am doing My part.”
It’s a gentle and peaceful reminder that He is God. It’s a precious treasure of assurance that He hears and He knows and He’s fully engaged.
“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in His holy people,”
Ephesians 1:18 NIV
It’s a compassionate nudge to trust Him in His fullness of character and sovereign wisdom to accomplish in the current situation the grandeur of His goodness for ________.
And in a moment, my anxiety (my lack of trust) diminishes. My heart and my mind shift as I allow God to be and do and have full control. Then my prayer becomes a plea for the person.
I ask Jesus to help ___________ see Him as present in their circumstances. It’s then that I pray for ___________ to cry out to God, to simply say “Jesus” in their pain. Scripture comes to mind. All those prayers Paul prayed. Even better, the prayers Jesus prayed for us.
I’m learning to pray it out.
Is it just me? Or you too?
I’m learning that my prayers reveal my own places of hurt and pain. In the words that I speak to God, there’s evidence of trust or a lack thereof. I speak my belief that He is good and knows what He is doing when I pray that the eyes of __________’s heart be opened.
I have to pray it out.
Listening. Speaking. Watching. Willing to learn. Willing to be changed by my own prayers.
“so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”
Ephesians 3:17-19
Amen.
Eyes on Jesus… we will shine,
Lisa
https://ephesians.bible/ephesians-1-17
https://ephesians.bible/ephesians-1-18
https://bible.com/bible/111/eph.3.17-19.NIV
