The Battle that is Prayer.

Prayer. Let's face it, no one is good at it. Mike Glenn once said, "No one is born with the gift of prayer." We couldn't pray at all if Jesus didn't help us. Why is this? Well, God starts the conversation between us and Him. When I sit down to pray I sometimes think "what will I say?" Do you ever do this? Paul tells us that the Spirit that searches the deep things of God searches your heart as well. The Spirit knows when we BS Him, example: "Dear God, thank you for this day…Amen." For some of us, the hardest thing about prayer is not falling asleep in the middle of it, I am definitely guilty of this. 

"Help me," is such a basic prayer we can pray to God, after all prayer starts with humility. Watch Jesus show up in your life when you pray this.  By humbling ourselves before Him, we are able to soak in just how powerful He is. After all, we wouldn't bring our innermost thoughts to Him unless we trusted Him unlike any other. In Luke chapter 11 we can see the Disciples indirectly asking God to basically help them. They ask Him to teach them how to pray. He teaches them Luke's version of the Lord's Prayer. And when they heard Him pray, they had never heard such a confident prayer in their lives. Our prayers will be strengthened by presenting Him with honest and humble prayers, leaving our insecurities at the door. Jesus teaches us to keep praying no matter what and to never loose heart. When does He ever look at us and say "woah, that's a lot of prayers?" Fun fact: He doesn't. By trusting Him with our prayers we show Him that we trust Him with us more than we trust us with us. 

It is important to know that some of the most meaningful prayer times can be those when we don't say anything at all. Start spending time in prayer. It could be just hanging out with Jesus, recognizing and enjoying His presence. By doing this, over time you'll start to admire Him and see the difference between our own lives and His. Jesus is after us, because He loves us and He loves our relationship. He gives us the confidence to deal with reality and He has already forgiven us for what we have done. So why BS Him? He will make amazing things out of our brokenness. He wants conversation with us. Through our time spent with Him, whether it be intensely praying or just chillin with Him, He can reveal to us who He is. If we practice showing up to talk to Jesus, He will too. Make it a habit, repeatedly present your requests before God. Only He can do the things we bring to Him through prayer. How cool is that? God is the only one who can help us with the thoughts in our heads and the needs in our hearts. Our God is strong enough, near enough, and good enough to respond to people like you and me. He is more. Our God is a BIG God. So, with that being said we should be praying Big prayers. He can handle anything you throw at Him. What are you praying for that is Big?

What if God gave us everything we wanted, but it caused us to compromise our most important relationships, morals, or ethics? It is important to recognize that God will stop at nothing to give His children what we need, but not what we want. He delays what we are praying for so that we will be more prepared when He provides it to us. He delays because He's trying to do something in our lives that we might not otherwise see. And He delays because He wants us to evaluate what we are asking of Him.We can simply ask Him "what are You teaching me?" while we wait. This allows us to line up who God is calling us to be and who we want to be, so that they can become the same. Job 14:15 says, "You will call and I will answer you." Let your requests be known to Him, but be patient in His timing for it is perfectly planned for our good. 

Give who you are to Jesus,
Courtney