Our Eyes Are on You: The Power of Submission in Prayer

 2 Chronicles 20:12 - "We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you."

No matter how badly you want something, or how much you need something, or how long you've prayed for something, you can't pray well without total submission.

A few years ago I got a lesson about the connection between prayer and submission.   I had prayed diligently for something a loved one needed.  Day in and day out, I was on my knees pouring my heart out, asking for this one little thing that was so important.  Days passed, and... nothing.  And one day I did something I'd never done before - I got mad at God.

Long story short, as soon as I realized what a horrible mistake that was, which thankfully took only minutes, I heard a voice in my soul saying, "Are you ready to lay EVERYTHING at My feet and accept whatever I decide to do with it?"  THAT was true submission, not the watered-down version I had embraced.

Sometimes (ok, frequently) I forget the connection between prayer and submission.  And, throw praise in there too.  I think all three of those elements are essential to a proper conversation with our Lord.  Praise - remember His omnipotence - remember his infinite wisdom - remember his tender love, so gentle and deep - and let your request be made to Him.  Then take everything - your prayer, your need, everyone and everything that means anything to you, and lay it down at His feet, and yourself on top of the heap.  He has a plan for it all.  Trust Him for the outcome - whatever that may be - and trust Him for the process.  He will never leave your side as He navigates you through it.  

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Random Thought: Be Thankful in All Things

1 Thessalonians 5:18 says to be thankful in ALL things.  Why be thankful in the hard times?  Faith grows.  Relationships with God deepens.  Sometimes someone who wasn't saved before will have a new beginning.  So often on the other side of the pain there's a blessing that we can't possibly foresee. 

Faith After Failure

 

If you feel like a failure at times, you're in good company. The apostle Peter himself repeatedly had a fair amount of trouble getting it right. His faith gave out as he walked on the water. He misunderstood Jesus frequently. He denied the Lord three times, and was even warned in advance he was going to do it, and he *still* couldn't manage to stop himself! Peter had numerous "fails" and he was still the rock on which the church was built. He was afraid. He was weak. His faith faltered. But he kept going. You keep going too.

Capturing Thoughts: Trusting God

 

I love it when God speaks to me.  I tuned in to my favorite Christian podcast and the two-day series was on handling your thought life.  Later, I picked up an older devotional, turned to the next reading, and darned if it wasn’t about our thought patterns and aligning our minds with the mind of Christ.

I’ve learned that when I am getting bombarded with the same topic from different sources, I need to pay particular attention.  What is God saying to me?  What do I need to do in response?

As a result, I have begun to pay closer attention to the things that go through my mind.  When something happens, I tend to jump to conclusions about the events to follow – and I have a nearly perfect track record of being 100% wrong.  Mulling over these assumed conclusions provides nothing valuable.  But it does increase my stress level – and all for nothing.  There’s no gain from it.

Something valuable I learned about thoughts is to not leave a void.  Satan loves a void.  If you are removing a toxic thought from your mind, replace it with truth.  “God has complete control over this, and I truly have no idea how He plans to play this out.  But no matter what He decides, He will provide what is needed and never leave my side.  I’m going to let Him handle this, not me.  I chose to trust Him in this.”

Another thing I learned is that this takes work.  It takes effort, and I need to be deliberate about it.  But it has huge payoffs, not only in reducing stress, but in reminding myself that God is completely powerful, He sees more than I do, He loves me dearly and is completely worthy of my trust. 

Eliminating the "Yeah, but" from our lives

I remember when I was a kid, my mother would tell me to do something and the first words out of my mouth were "Yeah, but..." and then go on to list all the reasons why her request would be impossible for me to fulfil.  I don't have time.  That's my brother's chore.  Tomorrow would be better.  Eventually before I even got "Yeah, but..." out of my mouth she'd look at me and say, "Yabut, Yabut, Yabut." and I knew at that point the conversation was over.  If this was English class, we'd just replace everything after Yeah But with a period, because that would be the end of the sentence.

The same thing is true of God.  When He tells me to go talk to that stranger, He's not interested in my, "Yeah, but what if they don't want to be bothered?"  When He tells me to do that favor, He's not interested in my "Yeah, but they won't appreciate it."  When He tells me to extend a kindness, He's not interested in "Yeah, but they treat me poorly."  He's no more interested in my Yeah Buts than my mother was.  Might as well end that sentence right there.

The Fine Line Between Helping and Hijacking

Subtitled: "My Nose Always Knows (Where It Doesn't Belong)"

My friend TJ had some great words of wisdom regarding our innate desire to want to "fix" everyone's everything for them: "I have a relatively small nose but it is always where it doesn't belong with the best of intentions."

There's a fine line between helping someone and completely taking over their situation and "fixing" it for them.

Sometimes God just wants to get someone's attention directly, without anyone inserting themselves in between.  That's a hard one to remember.

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Today's Random Thought: Does God Have a Better Plan?

Sometimes our plans may not work out to be in our best interest. We can't possibly see all the repercussions of getting what we want, but God can.  When what we desperately want doesn't happen, we need to trust that a perfect God who loves us more than we can possibly imagine is carving out a path that is exactly what we need, when we need it.