Do you pray before meals? Many of us do. What else do you pray for before you do them? What do you pray for in the morning, throughout the day, before you go to bed? Do you pray much during your normal day or little? Do you believe God can deliver?
Praying is personal. It is time spent one-on-one with God. It is a time of pouring out our hearts—worry over health concerns, anxiety over what’s next, and requests for what we want or think is best. We gauge our pray successes by how God answers them.
Though we may not admit it, we believe our prayers are ineffective if God does not give us the answer we want. We may think our faith is not strong enough, which results in God denying our request. That may be true, but not in the way we think it is. Our faith can always grow. It is simply our faith is not strong enough to coerce God into giving us our desires. It is our faith is not strong enough to humble us to seek God’s will rather than our own.
Jesus tells us that we must ask our prayer in faith (Mark 11:22-24). He tells us that what we ask for will be done for us if we believe. This is where we often come to the conclusion that our faith is not strong enough when God doesn’t give us the answer we desire. We strive harder to make our faith stronger. Why? So we get what we want from God.
We are going about it from the wrong direction. Rather than trying to make our faith stronger, we should be striving to get closer to God, know him better, and get in sync with him. By doing this, our faith is increased, and our prayers are filled with God’s will. This is how Jesus was able to pray over the meager food available and God increased it to feed five thousand. Jesus’s prayer was the will of God.
I pray we all seek to know God better. I pray we strive to be in sync with God’s will. I pray each one of us pray in God’s will and witness him doing extraordinary things in answer to our prayers. Seek to know God. Strive to be in sync with God. Pray in God’s will. Witness God’s extraordinary answer to prayer.
John 6:11 Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted.
Marty Pressey 