Text: Luke 11:5-13, Matthew 7:7-11, Luke 22:39-44, James 5:13-18
Of the many types of prayer in the Christian life, petition is often the most common. Whether we are crying out, begging, sending a quick thought up, or in a group assembling requests – our prayers tend to lean toward us asking the Lord to grant what we want or need. This is a beautiful and good thing, since He created us to come to Him and live in relationship with Him.
Still, if God is sovereign and all knowing, why bother asking Him to do or change anything? If you pray for one thing and get another, does that mean He wasn’t listening? Does it mean that you didn’t ask with the right words or with enough fervor or faith?
We ask from God what we believe we need, but we submit what we ask to His all wise, all good plan and we say like Jesus, “Not my will, but your will be done.” (Luke 22:42) One example of this would be Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane where he asks for the cup of wrath to be removed from him (that’s his petition), but he submits his petition to the will of the Father, for he trusts what God would give him more than what he would ask. In that instance, Jesus did not “get” what he prayed for, but he got the better (albeit harder) thing–the cross unto the crown.
When we pray in petition “according to God’s will,” we know that God will answer it. For instance, if we pray for “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” that is a prayer that God is inclined to answer, for that is a prayer that is God’s heart. At the same time, how that kingdom comes and how that will is done will be done according to God’s time and in God’s way. So, it’s not a magic formula or some incantation where we get God to do our thing, but it is a confident petitioning in faith that however God wants to answer this prayer, he certainly will because it’s a prayer that aligns with his heart.
While God has had one decree from the beginning of time, we know that a sure part of that decree is that we live in relationship with Him, and even petition Him. His Word tells us so.
Ask – because He wants to meet your needs. Seek, because you’ll find Him faithful. Knock, because your persistent pursuit of relationship with Him will find you nothing but peace and sustainment.
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57 thoughts on "prayers of petition"
I just want to say how blessed I feel right now. I can feel the Holy Spirit in my soul, lifting me up. Please continue to pray for me,,,,we should all pray for everyone tonight!
Shan, Thank You! I receive it :)
Hi Margie, you mentioned specific prayers, do you or the other women here believe it’s wrong or selfish of me to pray for an equally yoked husband?
No. Coming from a woman who married someone unequally yoked it was difficult and the marriage ended. It took me a long time to forgive myself for it. The Bible tells us to pray the desires of our heart. You desire a man that is equally yoked and you have every right to pray for that.
Hi Rene,
No, I don't believe it is wrong or selfish to pray for an equally yoked husband. I think you are a very smart woman.
This July, my husband & I will celebrate 32 years of marriage! We were only 19 & 20 when we got married. Four years later we started a family. We have been so incredibly blessed. We both are Christians and have been since we're were young. Our faith together is something that we both value and has been an important element in our marriage & especially raising our two boys.
The Lord says to bring the desires of your heart to him, of course always praying for HIS will in your life. God's blessings!
It is late and we have been traveling today..600 miles by auto to visit family. We left early and so only now have I been able to read the scripture and devotional and all the posts. You have all blessed me so much and I just have a couple of thoughts. Years ago somewhat like AmyKelly213, I kept a prayer list and for some odd reason I cannot remember I started writing my petitions in the blank pages at the beginning and end of my Bible and checking the ones with answers. Every time I open my Bible(finally exhausted all white space and had to go to notebooks) but every time even now I see those names, those requests,those answers, a reminder in His Book of His will in action. I believe that God heals..the passage in James assures that, but I learned that it is not always the way I wanted or when I wanted it..and sometimes it meant "goodbye" until we meet in heaven.
I also believe and from your posts still see this that we should pray until God answers, but I pray that when he answers I will recognize his answer and know that whatever the answer to accept it as His will because He sees so much that I cannot.
Great, great post today. Lord, help me to trust what you would give me more than what I would ask.
Thank you for this devotional!!! This is the first one that I have participated in daily on shereadstruth. The subject tonight reminds me of something I used to pray for every single day (since I was a young girl) – morning, noon, and night. It is something that I have given up on but I am feeling that I need to ask again because maybe now that I am almost 30, the time is right…
I am blessed to be able to participate and interact with you ladies.
I am truly enjoying this series on prayer. My Church is also in the middle of a study on the same subject. Haven’t posted in a while having to prepare lessons and sermons.
I thank God for all of you; your insights, testimonies, and comments have been very thought provoking and inspirational. It is always good to get different perspectives on Scripture.
I am praying for you all and may God continue to bless each of you abundantly!
Ebee, a lot of people look at Jesus in the Bible stories like the series that was just on tv. They think about the Miracles that He DID. But My Jesus is Alive today and He is still working Miracles! I believe He wants us to ask and believe that it will and can be done! He is our Healer! But His healing can come in all different forms. He knows exactly what we need.
Praise God Tina!! Amen! What an amazing God we serve!! He also granted me a miracle back in 1995- my mom’s colon ruptured and she became septic…along with pneumonia so Drs said this is it, call your family. That night as I was leaving to get my little 3yr old girl, I put in a prayer request for the 91st psalm. Family was called, I checked in thru out the night. Sunrise came and I just had this incredible sense of peace- I KNEW she was going to make it and everything seemed to make perfect sense…God was present!!
I became a believer that morning, and when I’m lost, I think of that sunrise and peace fills me again and again. Talk about an “A-HA” moment, or a light bulb moment, it was a real miracle moment!! :)
Blessings to your father- what a special gift!
And blessings to you sister! :)
Sisters, i.d like to share one of my many testimonies…. Last yes my father easy taken ill and we thought he would die. I live in England, he i Africa…. So i had to fly home really in my mind to say goodbye…
From the moment i got the call i could hear Matt Redmans. Song bless the Lord o my soul…. Particularly the lines let me be singing when the evening comes…. Everything i did, organization wise fell into place ….injections there was a cancellation…someone to cover whilst i was out of the country…high commission…got an appointment for the next week. I was a little grumpy about that, as i believed time was of the essence… Yet the words kept coming ‘ let me be singing when the evening comes ‘. I had people praying for me that i would see dad, that ws my one wish/prayer…i hsdn.t seen him in 8yrs…. Life happened and it wad never the right time to go home until now… I ws petrified as i got off the plane a week later… Got home to find him slipping away….but still here…. Through tears i sat with him praying, praising thanking God that i had got to see him and he, i. I told him how much i loved him and thanked him for whom he had helped me to be through his love and care of me…. I fell asleep… Next day he wad talking… Following day he wad eating small amounts of food…next day he was able to take a few steps…
Let me be singing when the evening comes.
I left home 2weeks later, dad was on the mend. He celebrated his 80th last month….. I was ready for the worst. Prayer from the heart works…
Prayer works full stop.
God bless each and every one of you this day, and thank you fir allowing me to share with you.
x x
That was a beautiful testimony Tina, God was surely faithful!
Tina, thank you for sharing, what a beautiful example of The Lord answering your heartfelt prayers and blessing you with more time with your Dad!
My Dad will be 97 in July! Never did I ever imagine at 50 yrs. old I'd have both of my parents with me! Mom is 86!
God bless your precious time together.
I have a long prayer list. Thank you AmyKelly213 for the reminder about writing it out and highlighting them when they are answered. Somehow that simple habit got lost years ago. Life sometimes gets in the way of good, sound habits. It's exciting to see how God answers us! To have a visual list makes his goodness more clear. More real.
I am praying for a friend of mine, Bruce, who has been on life-support after contracting flesh-eating disease. He is a dedicated Christ-loving guy with a beautiful wife and 3 young children. There are a lot of people praying for his full recovery. Small improvements are taking place, but he is still under and needs to breathe on his own. There are some kidney issues going on as well. This man needs a miracle so he can go home to his family and continue to minister for the glory of God.
I feel like I need to put my prayer request out there today since we are on the subject. Thank you. Bless you.
JuneBug, praying for Bruce and his family.
JuneBug, I am holding Bruce & his family in my prayers.
Sue :-) I too returned to faith and I love your prayer! I just want to learn and KNOW so much more- I’m a little impatient! Haha! Then I’m not sure if i’m interpreting His answers correctly…
I had an incident yesterday that really stunned me! Not only did the pastor preach about what has been on my heart, I also was praying on the way home for the Lord to guard my tongue.
About an hour later someone was at my door, bible in hand, asking if he could pray with me!
He prayed about the POWER of the TONGUE and HOW to pray and receive the Holy Spirit !! I’m still in awe and digesting what happened…I don’t get door to door missionaries in my area,
I don’t believe in “coincidence”, yet I’m STILL wondering… What just happened?!? Maybe I need to get bonked on the head!! It had been on my heart that maybe I wasn’t truly believing and hadn’t received the Holy Spirit, and then asking Him to guard my tongue…He really answered ME! What more do I need?!
Thank you Father, for your answers and your love! Humbly I am yours, your will not mine be done for your glory- AMEN!
Thanks Sisters for your beautiful, faith-filled posts! Again, more proof He is at work in our lives! Have a blessed day!! :)
Ellen I think that is amazing!! I sent you an email yesterday about your post. Sounds like God heard your prayer. I would love to hear what happened. Email me!
Hi sister ebee I’m sorry your going through so a tough time as this. In isaiah 53 5-6 igt states ….by His stripes we are healed,he was wounded for our trangressions. We know that the blood of Jesus heals our bodies because sickness and disease is not of Him. We look at the women with the issue of blood and she touched the heim of his garment and she was made whole. Because of faith she had been made whole. Trust Jesus my sisters and hold on to his hand. God is our Great Physican and this will be a testimony to others who hear it. Just continue to hold on to His hand. God bless you and ill be praying for you.
Yikes, I need some support today. I read this devotional this morning and read thru the comments and I am not sure what to think. For a few years now, I've been seriously struggling with some health stuff. God has carried me thru some of the deepest valleys and the health stuff is ongoing. My husband and I pray every day for healing, knowledge, wisdom, and the strength to keep fighting. Is it wrong to pray for healing? Should we be praying "God, your will be done" instead? This is really messing with my mind today. My husband and I believe that we will see the other side of this but is that selfish? I'm so thankful for you guys; especially in times like this when the tears flow and flow.
Ebee it is not wrong to pray for healing. God does still heal today and yet sometimes there are reason we are going through the trials in our life that we can't see. I wrote a post on my blog about this very thing called He Heals Me, He Heals Me Not. I want you to read it and see if it helps explain it for you. My blog is a place for encouragement. You can contact me from the blog or at [email protected] I would be happy to talk to you about this. He has not forsaken you!! God bless.
http://hopeinthehealing.com/2013/03/25/he-heals-m…
Good afternoon sisters:-) I love this devotional because I can relate. The only thing I really want right now is more of Him. Sometimes being a stay at home mom and wife can take a toll and we forget sometimes to just take a minute to stop.I mean stop everything and just Have a moment to talk to God. I used to ask God constantly LORD I want to hear your voice. I was looking for an audible reply.(I mean some people hear like that don’t they?) But God knows what’s best and the best way he speaks to me is in His word or the quietness of my heart. Those moments I record them because sometimes I forget what the Lord has spoke at times. But I’m gonna conntinue to ask Him for his will for my life because often times I believe I went my own path not certaiin if the path I took was the path He had for me. But through it all there is still restoration in Christ Jesus. I will continue to ask for more of Him! Have a blessed day ladies:-)
@nicole thank you for sharing. Your post has indeed encouraged me. God Bless
This devotional this morning comes at an appropriate time. I was just asking God again for healing for my daughter, who is dealing with the effects of two concussions. I was wondering how many times to pray for this healing. Months and months of continual prayer. When is it time to stop asking? The I read the devotional about to keep knocking and God will answer. In His time, but it will be answered. Maybe not in the way I expect, but He will answer. Thank you Lord for the reminder that You are my faithful Father, Abba. Thank you Lord. Thank you Lord for sending me this devotional and these ladies. You meet me right where I am.
Whenever I pray a petition I always try to remember that God sees the big picture and I only see what's in front of me and what I want or think I need. I have to remember all the times I've prayed for something and how He's answered
Last summer, I found my faith again, and with this faith, I petitioned God to teach me wisdom. By no means am I a wise woman, but He showed me that I truly needed to learn to pray. Not the childhood prayer of “Come Lord Jesus, be our guest…” prayer, but the prayer of God’s powerful daughter. My petition to learn, is being answered as we navigate through this devotional.
I give thanks to my father God, for his all knowing response, for his patience with me as I learn to humble myself to his will. This is a journey that I have chosen with my whole heart, mind, and soul, for I know I was lost without him.
Ladies of SRT, thank you and bless you for your wisdom. This devotional has become such an important and informative site; an answer to my heartfelt prayet. Blessings.
The season God has my family and me in at the moment is a time of change, struggle, and many unknowns. In the beginning I had a poor attitude of why….why me, why now, how come? But through this season, God has done a 180 degree turn in my life and the past 6 months my mantra has been "Not my will, but yours be done". I've been learning that I don't have the full picture like God does, so its imperative I trust that God has bigger and better things in store for us. "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (Jeremiah 29:11 NIV)" I may not have the answers, but The Lord does and for that I rejoice. His plans and dreams for me are far greater than anything I can wrap my brain around.
This devotion has been so timely today. I truly cant thank this community and the women who write these devotions enough. Each day I wake up to a nugget of truth that I need to hear. Some days its a promise from the Lord that I need to be reminded of or somedays it is a lesson I need to learn, but each day is exactly what i NEED to hear—even though it's not always what I want to hear :) Today is no different. Today's devotion has served as a reminded of a promise God gave us. For over a year I've been asking, seeking and knocking, but the answer has been Not yet my child. However, I have a meeting today that may answer many of my questions and problems. So I say, Thank you Jesus for always being in control. Thank you for guiding me through this tough season and thank you for providing for me. If this meeting today is the answer to YOUR will then I say Amen, and if not I will keep asking, seeking and knocking because I know you have something amazing in store. I am trusting in your will, not my will.
Good Monday morning to you ladies!
God does answer prayer–even though it sometimes may not be what we expect! I'd like to share a testimony about what God has done in my family over the last week and a half or so. It's been quite a whirlwind!
Back in January we put our house on the market. It seemed it a good time for us to sell and buy something else with interest rates being so low. We prayed that it would sell if it was God's will. If it didn't sell, we accepted that God must want us to stay in this house.
Back in February, my husband applied for a new job. It would be great for him with a lot of opportunity for him to advance, AND it was work that he believes he would really enjoy. There's nothing like loving your job, you know? Again, we prayed that he would get the job if it was God's will.
Fast forward now to about a week and a half ago–the Friday before Easter, Good Friday. We were starting to wonder if our house was going to sell, but we received a full price offer on our house and are closing April 26th! Thank you, Jesus! Now we needed to find a house to buy, but there really wasn't anything the the area we wanted. We thought that maybe the house God had for us just wasn't on the market yet, so we made plans to stay with my parents after we closed on our house while hoping that something would come on the market.
Then on Tuesday of last week (April 2nd), my husband received a call from that company he applied with back in February. They wanted to interview him the very next day. He interviewed Wednesday and was offered a job right on the spot; it seemed that they had almost decided to hire him before he even interviewed! We had thought that maybe God said "no" to that job, but it turns out it was a "not yet"!
Here's the part we didn't expect, though–the job they offered was in Denver and we live in Colorado Springs. For those of you not familiar that's roughly 60-70 miles away. We were suddenly so thankful that we hadn't found a house yet! So, instead of moving to a different part of Colorado Springs, we are moving about 60 miles away, but it is all working out perfectly (we even found somewhere to live yesterday). We couldn't have planned it this well ourselves, but we now see clearly that God has planned this all along for our family. We are so excited!
God has a plan for all of us. We just need to be patient and pray for His will to be done!
That is an awesome story Erin!! I love it when God works things out for us and we know that He was planning it from the beginning. Way cool. What a testimony to share! Excited for you and your family! God bless!
Thank you! God bless you too!
Wow! Erin, thanks for sharing! God always gives us more than we can ever imagine!
Lord help me to stay humble and remember that you are in control over all the things in my life, not me! I know that you work all things to good to those who love you, and are called according to your purpose. God have your way in me.
This is a very timely post for me as well. I definitely struggle with being persistent in prayer, especially when it involves praying for a certain person to come to The Lord. I know it's God's will for all to know him, but I also know that he gave us free will and he never forces us to choose Him! But, I think the act of persistently praying for unsaved people in our lives will at least change me and draw me closer to Him. Sometimes I fell like the man in the bible who cried out, "I believe, help my unbelief!" Lord, help me to pray with conviction and belief! May God bless you all today, ladies!
Somtimes I find it difficult to say the words “not my will but yours be done”. Not because I do not want to follow God’s will, but I know the moment that I say those words I may not like the answer. LOL I end up saying them, but I have to be honest that there are times when I pray the prayer several times before saying it. Currently God sent me on assignment to work at a place. I started in September of last year and within a month of being there we were informed that the facility will be changed to a private provider which means I would be out of a job. I was ok with the news because I knew that God sent me to this place for a reason. In February they gave us out termination letters informing that as of June 30th we will not have a job. Things got very real and people started leaving which places more stress on those left. There have been some other issues and they have even tried to create issues with me. At this point I am why stay here, what is the point. I was frustrated, started focusing on leaving, and had a bad attitude. God sent me a wonderful lady who reminded me that I am here on assignment. I confessed and asked for forgiveness. I told the Lord that I am willing to stay even if it is to the end if it is His will. That was on Saturday. Tuesday I was called into the office and they transfered me to another facility. While the new facility is in the same situation, it does not have the stress or issues that the previous has. I praised God for answering my immediate prayer of less stress. As I write this I am anxiously awaiting a call about a great position that I interviewed for a couple of weeks ago. I REALLY, REALLY want this position, BUT it has to be in His will. After reading this devotion and reflecting on it…I can honestly say “not my will but Your will be done Lord. If I do not get this position You will make a way and line something up for me before the end. I am not going to worry about how the bills will get paid or how I will care for Mom. You have been providing and will continue to provide. I want to walk in Your will not my own. Amen.
These verses are all so familiar to those of us who have been doing the “church thing” for long enough, and yet today reading through Luke 22 I was struck more forcefully by Christ’s anguish than I have ever been.
There are times when I have felt desperation and anguish when in prayer, but nothing like Christ on that day. Undoubtedly nothing in my life, no matter how much I find it distressing, is on par with our Lord’s suffering that day- but what stops me today and makes me pause is the realization that Jesus could and did pour out the entirety of his anguish before his Father. I cannot say I have ever done the same.
I am not an unfeeling or reserved person- this is not my culture preventing me, it is the heart of someone who holds back always a little of herself: Asking with a kernel of unbelief; seeking with half-hearted zeal; and knocking oh-so-timidly. What could be a greater revelation of my own lack of relationship than the realization that when I meet my Father in prayer, I always hold a part of myself back?
My prayer today: to stop holding back. He knows what I hold in reserve and so the act of reserve is ludicrous. May the Spirit guide me in this, for I am too weak to do it myself. I would rather be fully myself before Him than receive any other thing.
I always am in awe by the things the Lords does. For the past week I have quietly been meditating on God’s word. I have even missed a couple of our devotions. On Friday morn I felt in my spirit God Ask me why have you stop asking me. You no longer ask. I stopped in my tracks. But He was right, for me i’d had stop asking. For my family, my students, my friends, even my enemies there have been petitions. But for me I stopped. Don’t know when it started…. I went on to hear him say “you have not because you ask not”. On sat. Morning I was reading 21 days of changing your thinking, it was about my God given right to ask. Ask, knock. On Sunday morning my Pastor’s sermon came from Matthew 7:7. Then this mornings devotion….
Okay Lord, whatever is not of faith is sin. I don’t know why I stopped asking. I don’t know why I can’t believe for me. I repent of these feelings of unworthyness. It is sin. Your Word says that I have a right to come Boldy to the throne and to expect and answer. Lord you have courted me all week, I got it! Thank you for never leaving me empty. Amen.
Ladies this is a Miracleous Monday!
I have been exactly where you felt – why can't we believe for ourselves? I had such spiritual breakthroughs and I just force myself to accept that God's love isn't for other people, but me too. I won't be held captive by those same feelings of unworthyness. I won't go to Him in prayer, prefacing my prayers with "God, I know I have sinned horribly, and I'm awful, and undeserving"…. though make no mistake, that is a hard grip to get away from – a hard grip from the enemy. But there is such freedom when you let Christ break the grip for you.
This IS a Miraculous Monday! :-)
I have been learning a lot about prayer lately. One of the things that I've been told, and I believe, is that God always answers our prayers–it's just that sometimes the answer is no and sometimes the answer is not yet. If the answer is yes, you know it. If the answer is no, you know it. Otherwise, it's "not yet." And what gives me great encouragement from many of these passages about prayer is the need for persistence when God's response is "not yet."
Here's what I mean: 1) The translation of Matt. 7:7 and Luke 11:9 reveals that the verbs are in the present continuous, meaning that "ask, seek, knock" are actually "keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking". It's something we must do over and over and over. 2) Before Jesus tells the parable of the PERSISTENT widow, he says, "One day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up." 3) Even in the example of Elijah's prayers from James reminds us to not give up; Elijah prayed 7 times for rain to come before God answered.
God has laid something very specific on my heard that He wants me to pray for. I have been praying for it for 6 months now morning, noon, and night, to no avail. But these passages all remind me that prayers of petition and intercession do not always come to pass after one request. Sometimes God calls us to press in and pray hard, and that's what I see in all of the examples above.
I hope this is encouraging for anyone else who is waiting for the answer to prayer. Don't give up! If the answer is "not yet," we must be persistent and wait for God's way and His timing.
Blessings ladies!
"Ask – because He wants to meet your needs. Seek, because you’ll find Him faithful. Knock, because your persistent pursuit of relationship with Him will find you nothing but peace and sustainment." Relationship. That is the key. This really hit me today! It's not just asking and just keeping on asking and asking as if we are in a court of law and have to convince god to do what we want. Get to know Him. Relationship. "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." When we get to know him, pursue that relationship with Him, our desires, our petitions, will line up with His will! so amazing! thank you, sisters!
Thank you! RELATIONSHIP I Definitely needed that thought highlighted!
Love the parent analogy. Of course I would never give anything awful to my children when they ask me for something good. Thing is I expect them to trust me in my decision of what's best for them even if they don't like my answer, but how often do I not trust Gods answer or whine (even just to myself) about what I didn't get or or the way He answered? This was a stark reminder to me today and every time I hear myself asking my child to trust my choices for them I'm sure to be reminded of Him asking me to just trust Him a little more.
Love the prayer list idea, AmyKelly. Thanks for sharing that!
Praying for you Nanny, glad you joined us! The Lord was praying so fervently His sweat dropped like BLOOD! (Luke22:44) I just want to pause and think about this. I believe He was praying about all of us and knew what His Fathers will on the cross would do for me!!!!
Amen ! You have a wonderful way with words Hayley . This program is such a blessing to me already. Please continue to pray for Nanny. There is nothing but wonderful things that will come from this program. Thank you Lord for your love and protection . Just knowing that you are in the Heavenly realms watching over us all is a blessing. May God bless all who read this and bring more into our group!
ask..seek..knock. amen
I love that, Candace Jo!! Thanks for sharing it!!
In college, a friend gave me the awesome idea of keeping a running prayer list and highlighting items on the list as they were answered. Through that exercise, I learned to pray specifically (if I wanted to be able to highlight it, I couldn't just write "Stan", I had to write Stan's need) and I also learned that God often answers prays differently than our narrow minds can imagine. Healing may come through death, removal of struggles may result in a removal of YOU from a particular situation. I was so excited to be able to highlight things on my list and see God's work through my prayers of petition and intercession!
I also noticed the items that were left unhighlighted. I learned to have faith that these items would be answered in His time. Or maybe they were a gift of an unanswered prayer from the Big Guy who knew the whole story. Or maybe they just weren't any of my business!
I am a long way from my college days, but this study has encouraged me to begin my prayer list again… And I encourage you to do the same!! I am less than a week into it and have already begun to highlight– God is that good!! It is awesome to see the evidence of God's movement in our lives!!
I love this idea!
I love this too. Doesn’t this add to our prayers strength and focus? (Especially When I get so easily distracted,)
AmyKelly, (you share the same name as my favorite niece, Amy Kelly!). =)
Like you, I w exposed to prayer journaling about 12 years ago. It was my 1st exposure to a Women of Faith Conference. A women/author by the name of Becky Tirrabassi. She shared her testimony that day and also how prayer journaling changed her life. I remember feeling so encouraged and inspired by her story. At the time I felt like I was barely hanging on emotionally. Our world was being turned upside down by choices our teenage son was making. I went home that weekend with her book and prayer journal booklet. It changed my life as well.
Like you, I learned how to pray very purposeful and specific. I always dated my prayer journals as I was writing them and then when a prayer was recognized I'd do the same.
I don't journal daily as faithful as I used to, but I do still journal my prayers and God is faithful; God is good! All the time! Thanks for sharing your story!
I surely do not want any if my prayers answered that are not the will of God! Luke 18:1-8 tells the story of the persistent widow and the unjust judge,
"One day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up. “There was a judge in a certain city,” he said, “who neither feared God nor cared about people. A widow of that city came to him repeatedly, saying, ‘Give me justice in this dispute with my enemy.’ The judge ignored her for a while, but finally he said to himself, ‘I don’t fear God or care about people, but this woman is driving me crazy. I’m going to see that she gets justice, because she is wearing me out with her constant requests!’” Even he rendered a just decision in the end. So don’t you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will grant justice to them quickly! But when the Son of Man returns, how many will he find on the earth who have faith?” (Luke 18:1-5, 7, 8 NLT)
I love that part, "she is driving me crazy, she is wearing me out with her constant requests!" She didn't give up! We do have to make sure our requests line up with the Will of God, that we are praying toward that end. Thanks Raechel!
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For me, asking, praying or petition are wonderful ways to seek God’s will for us. He already knew our destiny before we were born. Still ,just knowing that there’s a God in Heaven listening even now as we come to him while sharing out own thoughts with each other is a wonderful Blessing to me. I am new to this program and I have already been so blessed!I feel like I have a new family in Christ that will listen to me, and I have so much to share and confess. In my heart I can feel the love from this community of women! I thank you all for listening and God for leading me here. He’s truly awesome! Enough said for now. Please pray for Nanny!
For me, 2 things stand out:
"keep asking" – oh how prayers for something for someone can drag into months, years and can become so redundant. However, today I am encouraged to keep asking. So today I keep praying those same prayers for that same person, that God would save him.
Then "the urgent request of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect"
How do I reconcile this with "there is no one righteous, no not one"? Who is a righteous man? where can i find him (and get him to pray for me)?
I believe that Christ's saving work on the cross makes me righteous before God and it's nothing about what I do (or can do), and everything about what he has done for me and what that makes me. So then, according to this, MY prayers are "powerful in its effect"? Wow. I haven't thought this way before, like so many, I want to find that righteous man to pray for me. Who I think looks righteous, mostly by his works that I can see. Someone who can "get the job done",
I didn't consider that could be me. (Because its not about what I do).
Visited your blog! Can't remember if I had told you we had been in Latvia as missionaries. You have a beautiful family and are doing a great work there! God bless!
no, I didn't know about you in Latvia, I've never been, but have GREAT friends serving there. Thank you for your encouragement!
I love how Jesus used the parent analogy. As a good parent, we would never give something nasty and horrible to our children in response to being asked for something good and nutritious to eat. However, by the same score, if we’re a really good parent, were not going to give them chocolate and sweets and other junk every time they ask for it, because we know it isn’t good for them and we are looking after them and taking care of them. Father knows best.
This could not have come at a better time for me. I have a huge final step towards getting my dream job tomorrow and have been begging God to let me get it. I need to take a step back and realize it's not the end of my world (though realistically it'll feel like it for a bit :)) if I don't get what I want . Because I've just realized that's what it really is…something I want. Thanks for sharing and I'm LOVING this series on prayer!!!