On Monday I shared some thought on communicating honestly and specifically with God. Here’s a few examples of what I was talking about…
If you want your career as a writer to develop, ask God for that, don’t pray “God lead me into the career that you want me in and help me to be content with whatever it is”. Pray, “God I want to be a writer, please help me to develop those skills, please open doors to help me get there, and please give me wisdom to make the right decisions.”
If you want to be a writer, write. And pray about it specifically and honestly. Don’t equate “being content in your current circumstance” with “not wanting to be somewhere else”. Being content doesn’t mean all of our desires have been neutered. You can hate you job and still be content with it. You can thank God every day for how He is providing through a job that you can’t stand, and you can pray that He helps you find a new one. To me, that’s an honest prayer.
Or how about this…If you want to find someone you can’t live without to be your spouse, pray for that. Don’t pray “God, either help me to find a wife or help me to be content in my singleness”. If you don’t want to be single, then don’t pray for that. God knows you don’t want to be single, so don’t try to convince Him, or yourself, that you do.
Going back to the story in Mark, that would have been like blind Bartimaeus saying to Jesus “I want to see. But if you can’t do that for me, can you at least help me to find a better begging spot so i can make more coin?” If he would have prayed that, would his faith have still made him well? I don’t know…I don’t think so.
We all have these crazy dreams and desires in our hearts. It’s how God made us. Yes, he wants us to enjoy every day right where we are. He doesn’t want us to always be wishing we were somewhere else doing something bigger and better. But He also doesn’t want us to be complacent and just sit on what we have.
Live with faith that God can move in your specific situation today. Live with joy, regardless of whether those prayers are answered or not. Every day that a prayer goes unanswered is another opportunity to put faith in Him.
Pray honest prayers. Pray prayers that you desperately want to come true, not just for your own dreams/desires, but also for those of others.
I think that’s what some of us need to start praying with the passion and consistency that we’ve often lacked. Because, as I mused the other day, you gotta have honesty in a relationship if it’s going to grow. And since prayer is our main form of communicating with God, if we’re not doing it honestly, it’s probably hindering, and not helping our relationship with Him.