y times we hear, "just pray about it." But the older I get the more I realize that I have used prayer to tell God what I want, to ask Him to bless what I want, to push my will on Him, to vent my frustrations, to worry and complain, and to avoid what I know He already wants me to do. We really misuse prayer sometimes. And perhaps the most commonly misuse is for the purpose of stalling. We already know what God wants us to do and we stall for more time all in the name of "I need to pray some more about that." It's sort of like reading a command in scripture, turning around and saying, "well, I need to pray about that and ask God if he really meant for me to obey." Nothing wrong with praying that GOd would give me strength to obey...but it shouldn't be a stall tactic. Came across a quote today:
Martyn Lloyd-Jones in his teaching of John's first epistle. He writes:
In a situation of crisis, the New Testament does not immediately say, "Let us pray." It always says first, "Let us think, let us understand the truth, let us take a firm hold of the doctrine." Prayer may be quite useless and quite void. . . . Prayer is sometimes an excuse for not thinking, an excuse for avoiding a problem or a situation. Have we not all known something of this in our personal experience? We have often been in difficulty and we have prayed to God to deliver us, but in the meantime we have not put something right in our lives as we should have done. Instead of facing the trouble, and doing what we knew we should be doing, we have prayed. I suggest that at a point like that, our duty is not to pray but to face the truth, to face the doctrine and to apply it. Then we are entitled to pray, and not until then.
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7 comments:
Great quote Di! So true! Thanks! How is your hubby's grandfather?
Love,
Lori
Hi Padivan, I liked what you said. Too often we can be praying about something when we know very well what the Lord wants us to do and we should get moving. When I read this Exodus came to mind where the Lord told Moses to stop praying and get going. (Exodus 14:15)
I have actually been doing a bit of a study on praying and it has come to my attention that we can actually rob God when we expect Him to deliever at a certain time. Know what I mean? I actually am robbing God when I put expectations and demands on Him when I don't rest and wait. I think that we use prayer as a weggie(?) board of sorts and expect some magical answers. IT's no wonder we are so spiritually sore and worn out. We aren't praying effectively. The effective, furverent prayer of a righteous man avails much but the hasty haughty prayer is never heard. God has struck my heart hard as of late with my own haughtiness and lack of sincere trust. Thanks for the post. I loved it. :-)
Wow, that's huge really. I do believe you have a paramount point there.
Probably, the hardest thing to do, is to pray for God's will to be done, in all things. I mean to really give in to the process of letting go and letting God. This is especially true when it comes to our children or at least I have found this. I know that my children need to go through many unpleasant things, in order to learn, as all of life is one test after another, at least for some of us(count me in). I find I have a hard time letting go of my free will and letting God do all the driving. Yes, I keep wrecking the car and then I'm reminded, "Well, if I'd only have let God do the driving, I just might not have the same result as I'd been getting."
It really is, at least for me, one of the hardest things to pray, you know to let go and let God. I'll dance around it, self will run riot. This has been my awareness, even as uncomfortable as it may be to look in the mirror and know I do this.
Yes, the hardest thing in the world, is to pray that God do what needs to be done, so my children and I will both spend eternity together. To watch them go through the growing pains, is often extremely painful for me and instead of praying that God knock 'em to their knees, I'll skirt around it.
For me, your post validates my perception. Good post.
Now, I came here to thank you so graciously for your prayers. Austen, my Grandson, is home, sick as can be but holding his own. The example in this is that I know that God is using Austen to shape and mold his father, mother and myself. See, I am 100's of miles away from my son and his family and all I can have is faith that the Father has all things in hand. But the true test here is to know that my son, my baby, must go through all this and learn to have his own faith and to learn to call upon the Father in good times and bad. Yes it is a painful process and this post applies to this exact instance, it validates and shakes me up.
Again, I thank you and pray for your bountiful blessings.
Hugz, Big Hugz,
Babz
Thinking of you today Padi and thought I would let you know! I appreciate you so much!
Thank you Babz for your thoughts. I do hope that baby is doing better! It is hard to watch those we love go through seasons of pain, but in our selfless love we can recognize that the pain is absolutely necessary for spiritual growth...one we must allow and not cushion. Of course, as a parent, I know that is hard.
Padi
Thank you Lori for letting me know you are thinking of me. It has been a very hard and long week.
Padi
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