Posts Tagged ‘prayer ’

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By:  Staci Stallings

One of the things I love most about having great Holy Spirit friends is that they find cool things to help me on my journey.  The other day one of my best friends sent me a link to a sermon at her church.  Now it’s kind of long, about 35 minutes, but if you have time to listen to the whole thing, I really recommend it.

The topic was on prayer and specifically why when we pray sometimes things don’t work out the way we wanted them to.  I often say that we treat God like a vending machine.  We put the prayer coins in, punch A5, and He’s supposed to give us what we want.  When He doesn’t, we kick the vending machine, curse it, and vow never to use that one again.

The problem with all of this is, of course, our very limited perspective.

Let’s say that what I most want is a car that has become available.  Now I don’t just want this car… I REALLY want this car.  So I pray to God, “Please, God, let me get this car.  If you do, I will never ask You for another thing.  Please, it will help me get to work.  I won’t have to walk or take the bus anymore.  It is the perfect car for me.”

From your limited perspective, this car is the answer to all of your prayers.

Here’s the problem:  What if it isn’t the answer to all of your prayers.  What if it’s a lemon that is going to leave you stranded AND without your hard-earned cash in two weeks?  What if God wants to give you this other car that’s coming but is not here right now?

In the sermon series, the preacher talks about how God’s perspective is like that of a good parent.  He knows some things are bad for us even when we don’t.

The example this preacher uses is one I will never forget…

He has three sons, little boys right now.  One day the oldest two came through the house carrying a box.  They went through the kitchen and down to the basement.  Their mother, knowing something was up, looked at their father, and the father followed them down.

“What’s up, boys?”

“Oh, Dad!  Look what we found!”

At which point they opened the box to reveal…

SNAKES!

Their plan was to let the snakes loose in the basement so they could have their very own snake habitat!

To which their dad said, “Uh. No.”

Our dad sometimes says, “Uh. No.” to us as well.  And we get angry and we stomp around and we pout and we try to get back at him and say hurtful things.  But Dad really does know best.  It is when we relax from thinking we have to have that snake habitat in the basement and allow ourselves to see things from God’s perspective that we realize, you know, maybe snakes in the basement really isn’t such a good idea.

Sometimes it takes years for us to see that and to realize why God said, “Uh. No.”  Sometimes we won’t truly see the reason at all on this side of Heaven.

The question is can you trust even without seeing?  Can you trust that God has a reason for not letting you have a snake habitat in your basement because it would be fun?

To listen to the whole sermon on prayer (which really is very worth your time), here is the link: http://my.ekklesia360.com/Clients/sermonaudioplayer.php?CMSCODE=EKK&siteid=4254&sermonid=181394&useSkin=skin_plain.xml&CMS_LINK=http://my.ekklesia360.com&width=350&height=140

Enjoy!  & Have an AWESOME DAY!

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