I've experienced my share of transitions in the past few months. They aren't always easy! Penn State classes started yesterday, my first time not experiencing first day of classes. That's a hard transition. Even harder was not experiencing a morning of getting ready with my roommates, meeting friends for coffee in the morning and lunch later in the afternoon, or spotting people in the HUB or Business Building. Weird transition. So what I've noticed from my excessive amount of transitions as of late, is that I lean on prayer. I felt pretty good about that. Hard times=praying without ceasing. Check. I started reading Becoming a Woman of Prayer. My check mark has now turned into a big, fat red x.
My typical prayers have looked like this: "Lord, provide me with friends." "Lord, show me where you want me to go to church." "Give me strength to be nice to people at work today." "Help me to do a good job at work." These are all good desires. I felt good about them at least. But they weren't always answered. The friend count is pretty much at a 0 right now, I haven't decided on a church yet, and I'm not nice every day. In fact, I sometimes let my stress get the best of me...which in turn is not providing those I work with a great example of what Christ is like. So why isn't God answering my prayers? I was getting pretty annoyed at his inconsistencies with answering. Even more so when I read this:
Delight yourself in the Lord; And he will give you the desires of your heart.Psalm 37:4
But then I read this: "Those who delight in God desire or ask for nothing but what will please God." So basically, if I want to walk with the Lord, my delight should only be in what he wills. And while I feel like my desires are pretty fair, I can't say I presented these requests to the Lord in hopes that they would align with his will; I just knew they aligned with mine. I wasn't recognizing the fact that even if my desires are good, they aren't necessarily what God wants for me. I kind of struggled with this at first. Because, why wouldn't God want to provide me with success at work or friends and a church? Well, if I'm honest with myself, at this point I am still pretty quick to attribute my successes to my..."talent." I am also quick to get lost in my work and put my worth in it. When I am struggling, when every day isn't going smoothly, I am more apt to go to God and lean on him. So less success=more God time. At least until it's finally drilled into my head that more God time all the time is better. All that to say, God isn't answering my requests for specific reasons, and his timing is perfect. End of story.
I guess what I'm really realizing about my prayer life are two things. First, I need a heart change. I need to change my prayer life to a plea to have my will match Gods, not His to match mine. In order to do that, I am going to start to pray a prayer Charles Spurgeon made, daily. "Lord, if what I ask for does not please You, neither would it please me. My desires are put into Your hands to be corrected. Strike the pen through every petition that I offer that is not right. And put in whatever I have omitted, even though I might not have desired it had I considered it...'Not as I will, but as Thou wilt.'" I want this to be true, really true. True daily. It will totally transform how I pray. I am going to pray it for the next 30 days and keep track of the way it changes my heart and my prayers. If you are in need of a prayer life transformation, I encourage you to pray this prayer with me!
Second, I need to change how I define the word answer. When I think of a prayer being answered, I think of the prayers that were answered the way I expected. Or, if not the way I expected, at least answered with a detailed explanation as to his reasoning behind his unexpected answer. But, answer does not always mean grant. Answer is simply attention to our requests. So whether I receive an expected response, a promise, an explanation, or a flat out no, I will consider it an answer, and thank him for listening. I want to be able to say, wholeheartedly, "My request has yet to be fully granted, but my prayer has been fully answered" every time.
Before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking I will hear.Isaiah 65:24
