"I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time - waking and sleeping. it does not change God. It changes me." C.S. Lewis For a long time I struggled with prayer. I found no power in myself to change my reactions and flesh led impulses, but I didn't feel like these were really things I could bring to God. They were annoyances that I just couldn't keep under control, and surely He would rather I at least make a little headway on my own. Let me tell you a secret, there is no headway to be made on our own. I have tried; I fail. Anybody with me? Then when I started to bring these reactions and impulses to God, it just seemed like I was at His feet every five minutes, and the more I brought, the more I seemed helpless and more need was surfacing. This is the root of why we don't pray. It highlights our need. In big neon letters it shouts at us, "You are not enough". Prayer forces us to stop pretending that we are.
I don't pretend to be a prayer expert, but I have learned a great deal about it in the last several years. It is a discipline developed over time, and I need so much more time. I have, for the most part, stopped trying to pretend I am not needy. I realize that day and night the need flows out of me. The less I try to stop covering it up and try harder, the more I have learned that neediness works. When I am comfortable with my helplessness, I reach for God, and the more I reach the more I see my need, and then the more I reach. It has become a pattern. It took time for me to really develop the habit and not to just fight my feelings of insufficiency. I think I have a jump on prayer because I am needier than most. I am learning to look at my inadequacies as what they really are, places for God to fill with His limitlessness.
Practically speaking when you start to pray in all your moments it will be frustrating for quite some time. When you say, "it's me again God, I know I needed you for this same thing 5 minutes ago, but here I am again", you will at first feel like you will never learn. In time you will realize that God isn't disappointed in your lack; He's only concerned about your reach. Prayer is really about identifying our neediness and recognizing that reaching for God supplies the need. He came to fill us, that we would have life abundant (John 10:10). He is all about giving what we need.
"And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work", (2 Corinthians 9:8). I don't know about you but I really need all things at all times. He is perfectly willing to give it; it's His plan. We just have to put down what we are holding and reach our hands to receive it.
Father, bless us abundantly. That has been and is always your intent. Let this truth work its way into our hearts. Help us reach for you and stop trying to fill our needs on our own. We ask in Jesus name.
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