Prayer is a good thing. We're commanded to do it, and Paul even says to do it unceasingly. Jesus specifically taught us how to do it. And we fail.
Here's what I'm talking about. We often demonstrate a lack of faith while we pray! We do what I call "the just prayer."
We fall to our knees, or our faces, place ourselves before the throne of heaven, entreat the Great I AM, and put limits on what we'll ask for or receive. "I just come before you now." "If you would just" answer this prayer this way. Just, just, just. We pray to Almighty God. The infinite, eternal, omnipotent God. Why would we want Him to just do the little things our little minds can come up with?
"For as heaven is higher than earth, so My ways are higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts" declares The Lord. The things we just ask God for are exactly that, our thoughts. Tiny, limited, temporal, material...dare I even say fleshly. In our thoughts we never would have conceived of the universe. God did and He created all that is. In our thoughts we never would have dreamed up the joy of marriage and family. God did, and we enjoy the fruits of God's magnificent thoughts. We never, ever in a million years would have dreamed up a savior who was God being born a baby, living a sinless life, dying on a cross as our perfect sacrifice, and rising again to bring us directly into the throne room of heaven to submit our prayers. But He did. God thought it up all on His own. Without any of our input or help He made the way...He became the way.
So, when I pray today I won't offer any "just" prayers. I don't want to limit God's imagination in what He wants to do in my life. Imagine how disappointed we'd be if God answered the way we pray, if He said to us, "Ok, I'll just do that." Today I'm open to whatever He deems best. I'm almost positive it's something I'd never have thought up in a million years, and I am absolutely positive I'll be happier and more blessed than with anything I could have imagined. Just so.
