Inside: finding the courage to pray big
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about prayer. You know, the kinds of prayers that are so saturated in faith that it gets things done. (Well, the Lord is the one that gets it done, but you know what I mean.)
Prayer is (or should be!) an important part of our everyday Christian walk with the Lord.
My mom, a Sunday School teacher, likes to teach her kids that neglecting prayer is like neglecting to talk to our best friend. Without that line of communication, eventually that relationship is going to crumble. Same thing happens with our relationship with the Lord when we neglect to pray often and fervently.
But, what happens, friend, when we’re too afraid to pray?
Too afraid that God might answer our prayers and disrupt our super comfy lives? Or, we’re too afraid of the answer to the umpteen questions we have about it?
When Fear Holds You Back
I’ve been thinking over these questions for the last couple of days.
I will be the first to openly admit there have been several times (recently) that I have been too afraid to pray about something because I was too chicken to see if and how the Lord would answer the prayer.
Maybe you know the kinds of prayers I’m talking about. The kinds of prayers that could change your life in the blink of an eye. The kinds of prayers asking for an answer you really don’t want to hear, let alone accept. Or the kinds of prayers that could really just hurt your feelings if it went sideways (or, at least, the direction you weren’t planning for).
These are the kinds of prayers where you really need to just muster up the courage to pray big.
Find the Courage
You see, it’s these kinds of prayers, the big, scary prayers, that we need to give to God, as hard as that may be. Our own questions shouldn’t hold us back from praying for the big things, no matter how big and scary those things can be (or are!).
Along with giving Him these prayers, we also need to be willing to accept whatever answer He has for them.
We know the Lord is faithful in every way and He only wants (and gives!) what is best for us.
1 John 5:14-15 says, “And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.”
Knowing this and knowing the goodness of the Lord, we can be sure that the answer He provides to the big, scary prayers will only be the best possible answer for us (even if it doesn’t feel like it).
Pray Big. Always.
Whatever it is that you are too afraid to pray about, I encourage you to just go ahead and take it to the Lord. There is nothing too big or too scary for the Lord.
From personal experience, I can almost guarantee you the more you talk it over with the Lord, the less scary the prayer (and the answer!) will be. I’d almost be willing to bet, too, the more you talk it over with the Lord, the more willing you’ll be to accept His answer.
So, go ahead, my friend. Pray big. And pray without ceasing, (you know, like 1 Thessalonians 5:17 says!)
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Thoughts?