Years ago I joined a small group at my church. One of the things that we did was to pray for one another……for strength, for healing, for our friends, and for people we don’t even know.
In order to keep up, I learned to keep a “prayer list”. I think that most of the members of the group did this. Mine is on my cell phone. It has grown to several pages even though I prune it back every now and then. My goal is to pray these prayers every day……..after my Bible reading. You’ve probably already figured out that I don’t always follow through.
Praying for myself and my family is a piece of cake. Praying for the people I know is a little harder. Praying for strangers is harder yet. I have come to think of this part of my morning routine as “the heavy lifting”…….and it is. It is hard work and some days……..I just never get around to it.
Prayers of thanks are joyful…….but prayers of petition can be hard. Praying can be hard work.
Why is it so hard to ask God for a long list of things?
Why does it feel like I’m giving God……….a “to do list”?
I don’t think that it is the time, or the concentration, or the physical effort.
I think it is because, in my heart, I know that I am on a different plane from God. I am small and weak and he is big and powerful. I see myself as Dickens’s orphan asking for more gruel……..a tiny inconsequential blip on God’s enormous radar screen.
Like Wayne in “Wayne’s World”……….”I’m unworthy”.
And that part is true……..I am unworthy.
But……fortunately…….that is only half of the story.
The other half of the story is this:
God loves me……..just as I love my son…….only more so.
I am the son……..of a King……….a King who wants me to succeed in all of the ways that really matter………a King who wants me to experience true joy………eternal joy…….a King who rewards me when I excell……..a King who disciplines me when I fall short………..but a King who loves me wholly and endlessly………no matter how I perform.
If I focus on humility……..on my weakness, I grow the distance between me and God. If I focus on God’s love for me…… on my “sonship”, I diminish that distance.
There is a balance here…..a “sweet spot” between humility and “sonship”. I think that one of the great keys to “right living” is to operate in that “sweet spot”. Prayers of thanksgiving teach us humility. Prayers of petition remind us of our “sonship”.
Both are essential.
In the “sweet spot”……….the “heavy lifting” gets a lot easier.
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
Paul, NIV
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.
John, NIV
“truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them .”
Jesus, NIV
God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
Paul, NIV