The sermon on Sunday caused me to start thinking and reevaluate how I pray, also why I pray the way I do. It was something that kept me musing over it in the back of my head at odd times. Then it finally hit today when I was doing my devotion. I usually read My Utmost for His Highest (wonderful devotional!) and then either the Scripture in that, or a chapter in Romans or 1 Corinthians.
In today’s devotional, it talked about how important it is to be in tune with the nature of God and able to hear His call, and not your own nature:
“The call of God is not a reflection of my nature; my personal desires and temperament are of no consideration. As long as I dwell on my own qualities and traits and think about what I am suited for, I will never hear the call of God. The majority of us cannot hear anything but ourselves. And we cannot hear anything God says. But to be brought to the place where we can hear the call of God is to be profoundly changed.” (http://www.rbc.org/utmost/index.php)
I began wondering and musing if I was in tune with God to hear His call, and not listen to my own nature. Throughout the morning, I was praying silently, “Lord, show me if I’m in tune with You. If I can hear Your call, and not listen to my own nature.” Then everything came together. That feeling of a light-bulb suddenly going off? Something like that, although it felt more like lightening suddenly hit me.
In order to pray well, you have to be able to hear the call of God. Yes, I know. ‘No duh’ right? Right and wrong at the same time. Prayer is bold and daring, shameless and persistent—and in order to gain this, you need total desperation, total surrender and death to self. It also hit me that in order to be able to pray in this way, this total desperation—do or do not—one has to be able to hear the call of God. However, I was still wondering how on earth you can obtain this. It made me go searching for answers, and the best thing I thought was to read over again what my pastor had taught over (Luke 11:1-13). In verse 13, I found something.
“If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13)
It struck me that perhaps the reason God gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him is because the Holy Spirit enables us to pray with this total desperation. I went to a passage I knew talked about that. Romans 8:26-28. What it states pointed to the conclusion I was coming to on my own. That one of the reasons God gives us the Holy Spirit is to enable us to pray “Thy Will be done” in the truest sense, because if one is in tune with the call of God, one can honestly pray and mean it.
“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” ~Romans 8:26-28~
Just some things God has been bringing to my attention. Also makes me wonder if that’s how Jabez could pray what he did, because he knew the call of God and was able to pray within that.
Jabez called upon the God of Israel, saying, "Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from harm so that it might not bring me pain!" And God granted what he asked.
~1 Chronicles 4:10
Do or do not.
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