The Ways of Prayer: Part Two- 3 essentials to praying

Yesterday I explained the evolution of my walk with God in prayer. From going through the motions to listening to God speak to me, I learned many things, good and bad, during the process. I learned that I could be lazy- rushing through my prayers just to check something off my list. I learned about patience. When I'm ready to hear what God has to say, he's not always in the mood to share. Like a wise gal commented, we need to wait for when He is ready. I can't just go around demanding answers. And most importantly, I learned that saying I was spiritual and loved God was completely different than living your life with Him and for Him. Life is easier and much more enjoyable with Him on my team.

Praying has impacted my life beyond words and I'm always learning new things about it. At church this past Sunday, our priest broke prayer down into 3 simple steps. For those that were making it much too complicated (me!), this message was so profound. In the past, I thought prayer was about dramatically bending on your knees, crying, screaming your profession of love for Him for all to hear. It doesn't have to be like that. If that is how you are most comfortable doing it, then go for it! But to me, that was too flashy and too intimidating. My worship is much more quiet, much more intimate and private. I'm still not 100% comfortable praying with my own husband!

Praying with thanksgiving and gratitude comes easy to me. I have so many things to be thankful for, the words and praise just come spilling out of my mouth! Praying for confession is a bit harder for me only because I'm shameful and have remorse for sinning. Yet, I know what I've done and how I've sinned, so I confess that to God and ask for forgiveness. What I haven't conquered yet is when I'm asking for help with problems. Half of the time I wonder why He would care about my menial problems when there is such suffering out the world. My little worries don't compare. Or I get impatient waiting for answers to come. I know this doesn't help the problem- it only makes my frustration worse, my attitude sour and affects those around me.

But these three keys to praying when I'm worried about a problem really made sense to me. It gave me the answer to how to be patient and wait for the things I ask for. And I hope that it gives me contentment when He thinks it's in my best interest to not give me the things I ask for. As usual, he brought this into my life at just the right time. He has a knack for timing, doesn't He? ;)

Three Essentials to Praying:

1. Focus on God and not the problem.

Pretty straight forward. Whatever the problem may be, if you're not focused on God, you won't be able to hear Him speaking to you. You will be blind to any messages he may be sending you. And you may be so focused on the problem, you will turn away the people He brings into your life that could hold a key to helping. Keep your eye on the prize.

2. Ask for strength more than you ask for solutions.

I was really amazed when this step was explained to me. Pray for strength. Pray for patience and endurance. The solution to you problem may not come for days, weeks, years, or it may not come at all. Having God bless you strength and perseverance is going to be what gets you through that.

3. Let God handle it. Give it to God.

This last step will be the hardest for me. It's easy to say you're giving it to God. But it's a lot harder to actually do it. We are imperfect sinners. We like to control and fix things in ways to benefit us. If He is taking too long answering our prayers, we like to take the problem back. We greedily snatch it away because we can do a better job and make things happen now instead of never. We dwell on it, mull things over, become angry, focus all our energy on the negativity, ignore the other things we have happening around us. Soon the problem is the priority, not God. And maybe we gain our results through nefarious ways because we were just too impatient. We thought we knew better, didn't we?

I really hope that these steps have a beneficial impact on your prayer, as it is doing wonderful things in my walk with Him.

Happy Thursday!

xoxo Y