Lately my prayer life has been strange. I've been praying daily and being vulnerable, but something was still off in my connection. I haven't exactly been "excited" to pray. I'd talk to God, but there was no eagerness to present my requests, desires, hopes, and dreams. I'm not hesitating but instead I'm tossing a bunch of prayers in the air hoping that one of them would be answered. I listened to a podcast where the speaker quoted something along the lines of "praying vaguely is like shooting everywhere hoping that at least one target has been shot but also hitting all the wrong spots." Yeah, my prayers have been vague. It began to feel stagnant.
"I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of Him."
This gives me the same vibes as Proverbs 37:4 "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." First we must truly understand the former to understand the latter.
A separate blogpost would be needed to go deeply into what it means to "know what the will of God is.” I think to know what God’s will is is to have a true hunger and thirst for righteousness, walking closely in His word and living it out, and then we'll know the mind and heart of God. And honestly I don’t think I’m there yet. But notice how the verse says, “this is the confidence we have in approaching God!” Knowing His will is possible (1 Corinthians 2:16), God hears us, and our prayers are being answered. Obviously my vague prayers show that I'm not approaching God with confidence haha.
Mark 11:22-26
“Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. “Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”
May my faith increase when I am tempted to limit myself with waiting to be "in season." May my prayer life flourish and be consistent even when life is going "well." May I stop looking leafy green and actually be producing fruit. May I be ready in and out of season. May I have faith that moves mountains.
And James 4:3 mentions what I said in the beginning of the blogpost, what I fear my heart will be when I do pray specifically.
"You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions."
There are more verses on prayer, but these few have been convicting me. Am I walking that closely to God to be able to say that I am confident that I'm asking in His will, that I am not doubting, and that I'm praying with a pure heart?
Anyways, I was not planning on writing about scripture. I was just going to write a blogpost of my current specific prayers but I guess the Holy Spirit had other plans. Here are my some prayers I usually pray for myself, but now turned into specific prayers.
Prayers I've been praying:
- God to use me where He wants me
- Family to be saved
- Campus ministry
- Clarity by this month on my career path (continuing ministry, staying on Guam, or looking for a totally new job)
- My sister to meet my friends this month
- Be in contact with certain people again and for them to come out to our events
Current bold prayer: I'm not going back to New York until I see a baptism at home!!
