There's a ton of stuff about prayer I do not know.
There's a bunch of stuff about prayer I've come to learn.
There's a bit more I've experienced through much sorrow, pain, struggle, surrender and acceptance.
In the final analysis, I find the most overlooked area of power in the Christian's life (including mine), is intercessory prayer.
A powerless faith is a faith which fails to lift up prayer for ourselves and others believing God is the One and only One Who can answer our prayers according to His perfect will.
Some things I've learned:
We can't help God out.
We can't change the answer.
We can't use emotion to sway God's will.
We can't always understand.
We can't always be happy.
We can trust the Father to answer without our intervention.
We can be persistent when He doesn't answer on our timetable.
We can rest without worry and have peace in the process of God's perfect timing.
We can believe God's promises and learn from our inability to understand as part of the growth process in the sanctification of our faith and growth as Believers.
We can have joy even when we are not happy with the situations we live with as we wait upon the LORD.
We can find completeness in the brokenness of our lives left in the hands of God.
There is a hunger within our hearts, souls, and minds when we pray believing and wanting God's complete will in a situation. The Holy Spirit clears out all the baggage (sorta like html stuff that only techies can fix in a website to make it work correctly and show up on a page) Then the Holy Spirit puts it perfectly at the feet of our Father in Heaven. Then He directs the course of events to bring about the answers to our prayers according to His perfect will.
For Daniel, God sent Gabriel who battled Satan in the realms between heaven and earth before finally answering His prayer for help. For Jesus He gave all He needed to "drink the cup", He would rather have been left untouched.
Our problem, as humans, is we tend to think we know better how that perfect will ought to look when it comes about. Sometimes it is not pretty...but as we learn to trust the Lord God Most High, He perfects in us the ability to accept His will as His will and relinquish our claim upon what the answer should look like.
I've had a ton of experience in this since my son was killed on Mother's Day 2005. And I mean to tell you the Lord and I have gone to the mat several times. Each time I find myself enjoying it when I'm pinned down and looking up into His glorious, merciful, loving, compassionate face through the magnification of tears in my eyes. He is good. He is very good. He is Sovereign and His answers are perfect. Praise His Holy Name. Whew. I feel like shoutin' !!!! selahV >>>>>>>
Please, don't rush off. Stand up and shout a bit with me. LOL. Take a moment and post a comment and say hello. That way I can be praying for you, too. God bless and keep you until we meet again. selahV
