Posted on September 7, 2008 - by bj

some thoughts on prayer and life

Many times i’ve prayed, and heard other people pray something along the lines of, “God, give me the strength to …….. so that i can stand up to these enemies,” or “God, please get me through this situation so that i can……….and be a strong man/woman of God,” and other similar things. This is something that i’m really trying not to do in my prayer life. When we pray like that, we are only focused on ourselves and the situation at hand. We/I basically push God out of the way to focus on those things. Now, i do believe that our motives can be right and we just word it this way, but it’s still hard for me to make the connection between the two without feeling that something is “off” there. However, it’s not my place to make any conclusions b/c God searches and knows the motives of our heart.
Continuing….i think praying for strength is pointless anyway. We were given all the strength we would ever need when we accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior. So, we can’t get additional strength from anything else b/c it comes from God. i think what we must do is embrace the fact that we are weak and can do nothing apart from Him. It’s only when we fully surrender our lives (whether it be school, work, relationships–all types, marriage, raising a family, etc…) to Him that we’ll understand what real power is. We were made in His image. We all want our character to be in line with His. But the only way that can happen is if we deny and humble ourselves before Him because He is everything that we are not. So that means focusing on ourselves is focusing on what we are not because we are saved and redeemed sons and daughters of God–that is who we really are. Focusing on ourselves leads to death. “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.” - Proverbs 14:12 ….AND we can’t allow ourselves to be manipulated into thinking things that are really of this world are of God–i’ve been there and this happens when we’ve become complacent in our faith. We end up trying to find satisfaction in the things of God and of this world which lead us away from Him. We eventually get to a point where we can’t even discern between the things of God and the things of this world and we just live our lives thinking that everything is God….little do we know that we’re really killing ourselves and wounding others in the process. We become impatient and allow ourselves to be guided by mere emotion and feeling. Like i mentioned in a previous post–we end up building walls around ourselves and it’s just a bad and dangerous place to be. The thing we have to understand is that there is no emotion attached to faith–just because we can’t feel it doesn’t mean we can’t believe it and vice versa. Emotions are like a trailer being pulled by a truck–they will follow along with whatever is in control. If we allow the Spirit to be in control, our emotions/feelings will help us experience God and will lead us to Him. But, if we allow them to control us and we think about ourselves and our situations, we will be led away from God, becoming one with the world and not one with Him. The truth of the world is contrary to the truth of God. What seems like a good idea is actually something that blinds you from the truth and if you stay on that road too long, you end up crashing, possibly wrecking others as well–it’s like trying to drive in the fog with your bright lights on.
i pray that our entire lives, including our prayer life will be God-centered. He is our strength, He overcame death and saved us because of His mercy. We did nothing to deserve it. What we long for the most is Jesus, although we sometimes don’t realize it. Nothing of this world can satisfy our needs, so there is no use in searching in it. Sometimes when i’m going through tough times, i just want to “get away” from life. We must understand that He is where we go to do that. i’ve found, and i’m sure you have as well, that to “get-away” in something other than Him, in the end, becomes a huge distraction and we end up walking a path of sin. Everything we need can be found in Him. We need to declare this and embrace the strength we have in Him and live in the truth of who we really are.