Sunflower Faith

 Next time you say a prayer, listen carefully how you say it.

Do you ever say a dangerous prayer? You know-the one where instead of asking our Father to bless us, or to help us either get the things we think we want or hope we want, or to intervene, instead, just give it all to Him and leave it in His hands and to His will for whatever He sees fit for us.

Lysa shared how Nancy Guthrie of “Prayers that Move the Heart of God“, shared,

“….by changing her prayers to be more about getting to know God rather than getting what she wants from Him, she is beginning to experience Him in deeper ways than ever before.

This is a humbling thought and a difficult habit too that I think we all experience at some time or another; Like Lysa, I struggle to present my requests to our Father but not only resist making them the focus of the prayer, but instead aligning on three simple principles that Lysa shared:

• aligning one’s heart with God’s heart
• escaping from one’s own selfish perspective of life
• listening, really listening to God

That can be pretty hard to do.

We want Him to help make something successful, get a job, bless our family, bless our work, the list can go on, but maybe, just maybe, if we stop worrying about something that has a direct effect on us, we focus our prayers on things that has an indirect effect if any effect at all on us and really just lay it in His hands.

As Lysa shared, when we think about the prayers that we do ask, how are they not slightly flawed? She answers,

“But they are slightly flawed prayers because they set my expectation of God to be what I want without taking into consideration the possibilty of God’s bigger plan. I make God into One who stunts my growth with convenience and comfort rather than One who grows me into a woman of character, perservance, and maturity.”

We want the promises, but we don't want to get any dirt under our fingernails in the process.

Translation: We don’t want to be inconvenience, have to work for it, have to learn, have to grow, or have to suffer because it’s too difficult, we don’t have time, we are too busy, we are above that, we *fill in the blank* the excuses we tell ourselves and try to tell Him.

Or worse yet….rather than wait for Him, we convince ourselves that though we haven’t truly heard from Him, WE don’t have the time to wait for what He desires of us and just take command and go full steam ahead, all the while convincing ourselves or rather try to convince ourselves, it’s for the better good and for Him.

This reminds me so much of the story of Saul. You know King Saul. Remember what he did.

Rather than wait to hear from Samuel, Saul took it upon himself to decide what it was that God wanted for him and then in his pride, continue to justify ignoring God and go on his own path all the while trying to use God to further himself. Didn’t work out well.

Even when he got those not so subtle hints, our Father wasn’t happy and that he should listen, King Saul was so driven to further himself, after God appointed him king right, that he kept praying prayers that well…really was too driven for his gratification.

Ouch.

Sometimes, we have to pray those dangerous prayers, to just put it all on and to our Father and completely remove ourselves from the picture, including literally, saying, it doesn’t matter if we get the job, or the project is a success or “fill in the blank” because it’s not about the job, the project or whatever it is that we are elevating in far more importance in seeing it becomes a success over hearing and doing what OUR FATHER WANTS.

As Lysa quoted from Nancy Gutherie,”…..if healing doesn’t come, if the relationship remains broken, or if the pressures increases, I have the opportunity to discover for myself, He is is enough. His prescence is enough. His purpose is enough.”

I think it is almost safe to say that what this means-who cares; It’s not about if we are going to be a success or not; It’s not if it’s going to be if we will be healed from the emotional or physical pain-yes that is good-and Lord that would be a blessing-but that will not be what is enough-What IS enough is that HE is enough.

Everything else.

Temporary.

This world will one day pass.

Buildings, books, computers, jobs, material possessions, everything…all this is temporary. Not God.

He is enough. He is forever. He is eternal. He is the Beginning and He is the End. He is enough.

Pray that dangerous prayer.

Don’t ask for comfort; Don’t ask for convenience.

Ask God to do what HE needs to do to challenge us, to convict, yes, convict us, cleanse us from this worldly attachment and care only to be attached to Him.

Don’t trade God for this world or what the world wants-Make MORE of Him, want more of Him, call and pray more of Him. If you are to diminish anything in this world-diminish the lesser things.

In the words of Lysa:

• May I make less of me
• less of this world
• less of the temporary
• so that I may be a vessel MORE (emphasis added by me) of God,
• more full of eternal perspectives,
• more full of His everlasting!

Is this your desire? It’s mine. So whaddya say we say those dangerous prayers.