prayer-original post 2007

i've been reading and listening to quite a few things on prayer. i listened to an awesome message by andy stanley the other day...it was actually the 3rd part of a 3 part series. and it was amazing! if i were you, i'd totally subscribe to the podcast through itunes. i'm pretty sure you can get the old podcasts...it's only a few weeks old.

anyways, sometimes i question why God lays things on my heart to pray for. i wonder why sometimes there is such a burden on me that all i can do is pray. it's crazy at times...and in the past year i have felt that burden many times. a burden that is so heavy on my shoulders that i just continually go to the cross and have to lay it down cause it's way too much for me to bear.

i've been thinking a lot about the things we pray for...the things i pray for. there are things that i have been praying about for years, i'm not even exaggerating, years! i hear so often, "well i prayed about it for a long time..." what's a long time? a day? a week? a month? a year? 10 years? i know God's concept of time is way different than ours, so perhaps He is just calling for our obedience and not a deadline?

one of the things that really stuck out to me while i've been learning about prayer is this fact: God is not annoyed when we continue to come to Him time after time with the same thing. He is honored. He is honored because you realize that this thing that you are bringing to His feet is so big, so out of your hands, so not doable by you own doing, that it will take His intervention to make it possible. you realize this and continue to come to Him because you know that He is the only way that it will happen. 

 

that is so true on the things that i have been praying for. i'm not talking about the "i pray i had a brand new 2007 escalade", no i'm talking about prayers about people getting saved, eyes being opened, people being healed, hearts to be broken, lives to be changed. all these things can only be done with God! one of the other things i've learned, and totally realized in my life is that as i'm praying for God to move or change other people, i in turn am changed and moved. God promises that if we seek we will find, if we ask we will be answered, if we knock the door will be open. God hears our cries! He will respond. we need just need to be faithful and obedient.

i feel like right now these are words that i myself need to be reminded of, and that people all around me need to hear. so many people in my sphere of influence are dealing with changes, and just having to FULLY trust the Lord. it's new territory, but good territory. more and more i realize that God is working, speaking, moving, and i'm just to caught up in trying to figure everything out to notice. i pray that i'm willing to stop and just be. be still. be silent. and seek. i know God will answer...now i just have to wait.