Tag Archives: prayer

What do you want from me?

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whatdoyouwant

How often I’ve asked and heard this question asked? In its various forms, the question is our heart’s scream to know what or what more God wants from us?

More and more, I believe the answer comes down to one thing.

Jesus replies, “Love the LORD your God with all of your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. This is the greatest commandment.” (Matthew 22:37-38)

As I am daily ambushed by God’s outrageous love for me, I am more and more convinced that seeking God’s will for my life is the wrong search. But I should search for His will in my life, and His will is the same as it has always been.

He wants you to love Him with all that you are. Your experiencing God depends on you having a sincere and real relationship of love. I am more and more convinced that this is more important than any.thing.else in your life.

Every decision, big or small, everything in your Christian life, everything about knowing God and knowing His will is fully dependent on the intimacy of your love relationship with God.

If this lynchpin is not in place, nothing…nothing in your life will be right.

Random prayer of grace

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“I am your child.  I quit trying to MAKE myself presentable to you and instead trust that I AM presentable to you despite all of the things that are just parts of a sinful nature around me.  I move on in that passage and believe, ‘if I confess my sin, you are faithful and just and will purify me and forgive me’ because again, you only see your child here, and I need not be plagued by sin OR guilt.  I mean is not guilt the actual issue here?  Not sin.  I mean sin is just inevitable, but what IS of choice by me is whether I will allow guilt to plague me and keep me from seeing myself as your child instead of seeing myself as this horrible person.  You’re so much quicker to forgive me than I am to forgive myself.

Enough

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enough

I remember praying the words of Switchfoot from the very sincere depths of his heart,

“Let me know that you hear me.
Let me know your touch
Let me know that you love me.
Let that be enough.”*

I listened to the song and prayed it sincerely almost 5 times on repeat from my home to the church.  I sat in the parking lot, BEFORE church already preparing my heart in honesty with a basic cry, “God, please let me know that you hear me.  I don’t ask you to solve my problems, my anxieties or my fears.  I merely pray that you let me know that you hear me.”

There are times we thirst for and grow parch for lack of God’s presence.

I remember worshiping and singing to a God I knew loved me, but whom I had needed to just BE with. I remember standing to worship again and choosing to only mouth the words and let them really speak and scream from my heart,

“You’re all I want…
You’re all I need…”

* Let That Be Enough by Switchfoot

Listen up, Soul

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mysoul

Soul, I will address you as the Psalmists do. Oh my soul within me, why do you continue to focus on the discouragement, shame, and self-defeat? Why do you not focus on Jesus and the rest he gives to you? (Matthew 11:28-29) Why do you believe the lies of the Imposter within you? Listen to the truth of Jesus’ words, come to Him, and he will give you rest.

In Jesus, you find your rest. In Jesus, you find rescue and refuge from your troubles. In Jesus, you will find rest you crave and desire. Oh heart within me, you are under the weight of defeat, and you need rest. Only in Jesus will you find rest from self-defeat, hopelessness, and shame. Listen up, soul! You need rest! Only when you are focused on Jesus will you not be be focused on the destructive lies and inner-dialogue.

Oh my soul, come to Jesus this morning [and tomorrow....and the next day], and you WILL find rest.

Prayer and Relationship Neglect

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Entangle

More and more, I am reminded that prayer is my relationship with God. It is not an element or part of my relationship. It is the largest challenge to my heart right now. I need prayer to be a much larger priority than it is.

Prayer is when my heart, mind, and soul are all focused on God instead of all the things of life I do not control anyway. Because of that focus, prayer is when I truly know and love God. Prayer is when I can be close to God, my Abba and my Lord. Prayer is when and where I can be the beloved one of God.

I realize when I choose to make little time for prayer, I am saying to God I am not truly committed to this relationship. I also realize every life that is greatly used by God throughout all of history and present have a common denominator of a dynamic, fervent, prayer life, and I really want my life to be used greatly by God to bring Him glory and bring more people to know His love and His hope.

Satan fears the power of a praying person (2 Cor. 10:3-5, 7; Eph. 6:10-17), but my flesh is weak and resists the fervent discipline (Matt. 26:40-41; Rom. 7:14-18). There is power in a fervent daily prayer life that is very different from our world’s idea of power.

My God, my Abba, help me make our relationship the greatest priority in my life. Help my heart, mind, and soul paint a stark picture of how absolutely ridiculous it is to pursue anything else more. Help me place nothing, even good things, above you and our relationship. Fill me with desire to be devoted to prayer. Help me entangle with you so that Jesus may live His life through me all the more each day. Grant me a hunger for you. I do not want to neglect our relationship. I need it so desperately.

The Practice

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practice

The phone call still resonates in my head sometimes. My football coach called me the day after the first day of practice for the season. He was calling because I had not showed up for the first day. I was a senior, and I had played for this man for 3 years already. I made a decision to quit my senior year and not play football any longer. I had not told him this; I just chose not to show up to practice.

That action was what made it clear to my coach that I did not really want to play football. The ones who really wanted to play showed up for practice.

How many times have I prayed short snapshot prayers to tell God, “I want to grow spiritually. I want you to use me in ministry. I want to know you more and see you do crazy things in my life, my family, and my ministry.” Yet how many times has God responded with the words of Jeremiah 29:13. “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.“

If I say I want to grow and yet seldom show up for the practice of serious prayer, I am kidding myself. God cannot teach me to pray and speak to my heart and guide me toward growth if I refuse to show up for practice.

We learn to pray by praying and showing up.

When God wrote my aching heart a letter

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success

You are successful, PC. No matter what anyone else says or expects of you, if you will remain obedient, faithful, and passionate, you are and will be successful.

Trust this, PC. Trust it and allow your aching heart to be affected by what I am saying to you.

I have given you this word:

SUCCESSFUL

You are my son. I am very pleased with you. You have been obedient and faithful through your ache and dryness. PC, you are successful and I have wired you for this success.

I DEFINE YOUR SUCCESS, PC. No one and nothing else defines your success. If you remain obedient to the things I have wired you for!

I love you, PC. I have never left you. I have never been far off from you. In fact, your aching heart has been so much closer to me than you even realized.

We will be lovers once more. I have your heart. I always have. Even when it aches, it has always been mine. I am proud of you, and you are successful, son.

Prayer is the Relationship

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It seems I do everything else more than I pray when I should be praying more than anything else. And being a pastor just means I have gone pro at this misdirection.

Many of us are excellent organizers, promoters, strategists, leaders, but we are poor pray-ers. Many of us rely on our gifts and talents instead of God who gave those gifts and talents, and that reliance and power is in prayer. Where there is little prayer there is little power.

Prayer is not an element of our relationship with God. Prayer IS your relationship with God. [Tweet That]

Do I want a powerful new relationship with God? Do I hunger and thirst for deeper spiritual filling and vibrant ministry. I can go nowhere God is not already (Ps. 139:7-12). I cannot escape his presence, but I can entirely miss him.

God, allow my heart to be affected by this word.

Affective Passion

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affected

The word passion means “to be affected by” [Tweet That]
Think of the things you are passionate about.

You are passionate about those things you are most affected by, and that may be just about anything. When I think of the picture of my life and its passions, I want to create a picture of how ridiculous it is to be more passionate about anything other than Jesus Christ and his presence, his love, his grace, and his Spirit.

Does prayer affect me? When I pray, do I come from a place where my heart is affected and affectionate, or are they words without thoughts?

Does my time in God’s word affect me? Do I read the things I read wanting to allow myself to actually be affected by what I read, or am I just reading words without thoughts?

Is my life affected by the love of God today? Not effected, but affected. The former I do not control, the latter I do. Do I allow my heart and life to be affected by the gospel? Am I truly passionate about my life with Christ? Does it affect me today? Do I allow his grace to affect my emotion, my choices, and my thirst for MORE?

These are the true questions of passion.