When our own prayer surprises us.
Our prayers can surprise us.
The prayer
I’d been praying about something. The outcome would affect me. Meaning that I would have to accept the answer.
I’ve also been praying in bed before I even get up. I call them my rising prayers. I’m tracking them in my BUJO (bullet journal). I’ve been pretty consistent now for months. This does not take the place of my regular devotion time. It’s what pops into my head as I wake up.
A few times, it’s just been a verse or one sentence. Anyway….
I’d been praying for my personal reaction and acceptance of something and then one morning I woke up and out of my mouth came words I had no conscious knowledge of thinking. Same situation, but a different emphasis. It wasn’t something I had any control over but the outcome would mean I might have to accept a situation I didn’t want to. (No medical crisis or anything like that.)
I found myself praying for the sake of those with home the situation rested. I knew that I needed to pray that they would do the right thing for them. It wasn’t an issue as to whether I would have to accept it the decision or not as I would have had no choice. The focus changed from my acceptance of the outcome to praying for them to do the right thing.
I’ve never prayed quite that way. It was as if I knew what the right thing was for them because of the words that came unexpectedly out of my mouth. I mean, I knew that the consequences to them would be far greater than it would be to me because I already made my peace.
I hate to be so vague and I’m not at all sure I’m making my point. I’m a big believer in praying out loud. I think when we pray silently it’s easy to dismiss some thoughts as, “It’s all in my head.” But when we pray out loud and hear our words and know they didn’t come from us because we had been thinking entirely differently, we can know it’s the voice of the Holy Spirit.
Now, here’s the even better part. Here’s the surprising answer to that prayer.
That very afternoon, the situation was resolved exactly as I had been directed to pray. God can seem to work really slow but at other times, he seems to work at warp speed.
So were is all this heading?
I guess where it’s heading is that we should never be afraid to be diverted in our prayers. Our prayers for a person or a situation, up until a certain point, may be right on target. But what happens is that God has been working behind the scenes and now our prayers need to change.
Same situation, but requiring different prayers.
Circumstances change and our prayers need to reflect that. God works in someone’s life and different prayers are needed. This brings me to the importance of persistent prayer.
There is ample evidence that God encourages persistence as in the parable below:\
The Parable
Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2 He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. 3 And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary. For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’”
What Jesus said
And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. Howeaver, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” Luke 18:1-8
There is this verse as well.
“Ask (keep asking) and it will be given to you; seek (keep seeking) and you will find; knock (keep asking) and it will be opened to you.” Matthew 7:7; (Italicized mine.) The verbs are all in the present knock is in the active present tense which means we continue to knock and seek. etc.
Then there is this: Ephesian 6:18:
And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”
The Conclusion
All of this tells me it’s good to be determined in prayer.
I believe had I not been praying persistently about the above situation, I never would’ve been given that detour. Our prayers definitely can surprise us.
Be on the alert for God to interrupt your prayer requests and redirect you. But this will only happen if we are persistent. Think about it.
Pray only once about something. The situation changes. Did our prayer change with the situation? Not unless we were aware we needed to. That’s why we keep at it.
As God works in a life or a situation, our prayers need to reflect what God is doing. As Henry Blackabee states in his book Experiencing God states, “We have to join with God in what he is doing.” How do we do that unless we are open to changing our prayer?
I’ve been “detoured” often while praying. I can actually think of three times within the last month and in each case, God gave me a “heads-up” that the circumstances had changed and I needed to be praying differently.
I hope you have wonderful and blessed day.
The post, “When our own prayer surprises us.” appeared first on faithsighanddiy.com/UnderHisWings
