Prayer: Our Requests Up or God's Will Down?

• Bob's back surgery tomorrow
• My aunt Ruthie's mom's sister's uncle lost his job
• The youth bake sale this weekend
• 17 unspokens

This is an example of a "normal" prayer request list that I have grown up with since I was a kid but it is something that I have been convicted of lately personally. I just feel like the prayers that we lift up to God are very "me-centered". We like to look to God as our cosmic Santa Clause as someone once put it.  

Jonathan Leeman sums it up what prayer should be when he says "praying is how God's people should grab hold of His Word and align their will and their hopes with His." Yet, how often, whether intentionally or not, we try to coerce God to align His will with ours? How often do we use James 5:16 as a way of "naming it and claiming it" when it comes to prayers? How often do "you ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions?"

I think that our prayer lives individually as well as our prayer lives corporately as a church are a perfect reflection of the self-centered, self-hep, consumerism culture that we live in nowadays. We all want our "best life now". We all want to look out for number one. It is the way that we are programmed in the 21st century. Even when it comes to church services, we are all looking to get something out of the message to help ourselves.

Our prayers should have one purpose and one alone and that is God's glory and His will. Our prayers, I believe, are a great indication of what is in our heart. If we are praying for help with our job or physical healing or for money while neglecting to pray for the lost or for the Holy Spirit to work in our lives or that God's glory will be made known through our lives, then we are no different than non-Christians asking God for help when they need Him.

We need only to look to Jesus on how to prayer in Matthew 6 where he says plainly "Pray then like this" and goes on to pray "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. (Praying for God's glory first and foremost) Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. (Ultimately, we want God's will not ours) Give us this day our daily bread (Pray for the necessities of life) and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. (Repent of our sins) And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. (Keep us from sin).

Now let me conclude this by clarifying that I in no way am saying that it is bad to pray for someone to be healed or for someone to find a job. We are supposed to lift our requests to God in prayer and we are supposed to pray for each other. However, when our entire prayers are focused on what we want and what we need, I think that our prayers have gone awry. Lord, help my prayers to be Your will down and not my requests up.

Generations

Christmas has always been a special time for my family. Nowadays it is pretty much the only time when my entire family gets together under one roof. I may not see or talk to some of my uncles or cousins for most of the year but every Christmas we get a chance to all sit down and catch up. As a kid I used to look forward to Christmas more than any other day, probably even more than my birthday. It was just fun getting together with all my cousins and opening gifts and then spending the rest of the night playing with them. There are many Christmas' that I remember very vividly still. Now as I see my Grandparents getting older and more fragile and my Aunts' and Uncles' getting a few more grey hairs every year, I wonder at how many more Christmases we have to spend together as a family.


It was cool this year though because a new generation is being formed in our family as myself and two of my cousins have little sons and daughters who played together and celebrated some of their first Christmases together and another cousin will have a baby by next Christmas. I remember just sitting there in the living room and watching the little ones play together and think that not that long ago that was me and my cousins. It made me think of all the wonderful memories they are going to have together like my cousins and I had. It was just one of those moments when you realize that you are officially in a new chapter of your life. Have you had those moments? When you look at someone or see something and you realize that a new chapter of your life is being written while another chapter has already had it's conclusion penned.

Life is good though, every sentence, every paragraph and every chapter. I look forward to seeing my daughter and God willing future children write the chapters of their life as they grow up and experience life together.

One good thing about music. When it hits you feel everything

Music is an amazing phenomenon. Just the way it effects your emotions (both good and bad) and invokes memories (both good and bad) is truly something to behold. I think of my own life and my own experience of music and Spotify has really just caused this to be in overdrive for me lately since with this amazing invention I have been able to seamlessly find any song that I can think of. I rank the inventors of Spotify right up there with the inventors of S'mores. I mean you have songs that you listen to that make you think you can take on the world or there are songs that make you want to help people who are in need or songs that make you worship God for who He really is or songs that cause you to cry or smile or laugh. Music is responsible for a rainbow of emotions.

I listen to songs like "Mo Money Mo Problems" and I can visualize my high school days when my friends and I made a music video around my house when we were probably supposed to be sleeping. I can still see that night crystal clear when I hear the lyrics "Throw your rollies in and sky. Wave em side to side and keep your hands high". 

Or when I hear Usher sing "You got it, you got it bad. When you're on the phone. Hang up and you call right back" I can still smell the chlorine from the pool that I danced with my then girlfriend who became my wife by with the flicker of candlelight illuminating our faces. As we disappeared to the world and it was just us and Usher.

Darius Rucker singing "It won't be like this for long. One day we'll look back laughin' at the week we brought her home. This phase is gonna fly by so baby just hold on. It won't be like this for long." I am taken back to the hospital for the birth of our little girl. I remember listening to this song the first night at the hospital right after Olivia was born and just thinking "I can't believe I am a dad" and then thinking how much I needed to cherish every moment because it is going to go so fast. Now 2 and a half years later I wonder where time has gone as my little baby is now my little girl.  

However, I have to wholeheartedly disagree with Bob Marley's assessment of music when he says "One good thing about music, when it hits you feel no pain." There are several songs that bring back pain for me.

Blessid Union of Soul's song "Nora" is a perfect example. When, towards the end of the song, the lead singer belts out "and when you died I didn't cry for long cause I believe I'll see you again" I am taken back to my great-grandma's funeral. She was my first experience with death of a loved one.

Finally, the song that spurred on this entire blog was a song that I listened to today of which I have included the music video below. The lines "Shine Your light so I can see You. Pull me up, I need to be near You. Hold me, I need to feel love. Can You overcome this heart that's overcome?" invoke memories of the daughter that I never had the chance to meet. The one that God called home before we even had a chance to kiss her face or hold her in our arms. I remember after we lost our baby, I just cried out to God the lyrics to this song. I just needed to feel His embrace and His love. I needed to be comforted by the ultimate comforter.

One thing about me is that I don't let things effect me. Whether that is good or bad, I just don't let things effect me. I tend to suppress any hurt or pain that I have and just move passed it because in my mind, what is the purpose of hurting? What good does it do to feel pain? However, when I listen to music, I have learned to accept all the emotions that come along with it...and I am OK with that.

The Little Years

The pattering of little footsteps is often the sound that brings me the greatest joy and anticipation. Yesterday I was standing in the kitchen and Olivia had just woken up. She must have heard me in the kitchen and I just hear her little feet running down the hall. I felt the anticipation build as the footsteps got closer. Then I see her, with her cute little monkey jammies on, turn the corner with a huge grin and her arms wide open running for me to hold her. I quickly scooped her into my arms and she just laid her head down on my shoulder and gave me the biggest and longest hug. At that moment, everything else in the world could have been falling to pieces and I would have still been filled with unimaginable joy. 

It was one of those moments that I will never forget and I will cherish as long as I can because I know that one day she will be grown up and hugs like that will be few and far between. In the meantime, I will cherish every minute of these little years because I know they go fast as they already have.