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Prayer seems to come so easy for some. I love being around those who have been given the gift of prayer. Prayers obviously prompted by the Holy Spirit. Prayers that make you feel like you’ve just been ushered to the feet of God! Too often, my prayers are for me because I am so desperate for healing on so many levels. It is more difficult than it used to be for me to pray, because I can’t always see past my own pain and “spiritual weeds.” I pray for my family and friends and needs I am made aware of, but then again, I do not trust my own heart, so I take these matters before the Lord—desperate for the Holy Spirit to guide my words, my prayers. Desperate for the Holy Spirit to speak louder than my heart!

It was in the quiet morning hours when the Lord challenged me, “Ask ME how you should pray.” The silence captured my attention, and a transformation began. “How to pray” was a revelation I had after the tragedy, because the fact was magnified that I had NO CLUE what to pray, how to pray, or what God wanted me to pray. That’s the one that stung the most—how could I, Rebecca, possibly know the will of God in any situation, especially our tragedy? That’s when I learned to pray The Word, like my friend Carla. But to pray The Word like Carla, one must be saturated WITH The Word like Carla. And I was a sponge dying for life in the Scriptures! Praying The Word became a powerful safe place for me—the right place for me.

I wonder, how often do we approach the Lord and ask, “Lord, how do YOU want me to pray?” “How do YOU want me to pray for my friend, or how do YOU feel about this situation, so I can pray effectively?” “Holy Spirit, speak. I am listening.” If I love Jesus, and more importantly because HE LOVES ME, then should I not begin my prayer (after acknowledging His awesomeness and sovereignty), by asking, “What is on Your heart that I should pray?” It’s the pause before we pray. “The power of the pause,” as my friend Sharon would say.

I remember being approached to pray for someone soon after the crash—for someone who was diagnosed with a fatal illness. I was shocked that they trusted me because surely, they could see the condition of my heart. I felt they asked me to pray as though I now had some special connection to the Throne Room of God. (I confess, that was my crippled thinking at the time.) In a state of panic, I whispered, “Dear Lord, help me, because they are praying for healing as though it is Your will; when in fact, I know full well that no one knows the mind of God. How dare we presume to know what Your will is. We don’t know Your thoughts. We don’t know Your ways. Your “perfect will” might be to relieve this brother and take him home. You may very well want him home!” “HOME”—that thought came crashing down on me like an avalanche! A depiction our youngest daughter painted after God took our daughter Meagan, “Mom, maybe God took Meagan because He wanted her with Him. Why wouldn’t He?” Stopped in my tear-filled tracks! Yes! Why wouldn’t He? And my prayer life changed forever!

In Isaiah 55 it is written, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.” The crash, “the valley of the shadow of death,” the loss, the trauma, the brokenness, the struggle, the grace, the miracles, the ever-reaching arms of Christ, the ever-forgiving heart of the Father, the leading of the Holy Spirit—all factors that began to re-shape the way I pray.

TRUTH…God does what He pleases, when He pleases, to/for whom He pleases. And He does what He chooses for His glory and our good. Whatever He chooses. When He chooses. Our Sovereign God will accomplish what He wills, when He wills, as in Psalm 135, “Whatever the LORD pleases, He does, in heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deeps.” 

When will our petitions reflect what HE wants rather than our own desires? When will our hearts pray spontaneously, “THY will be done.” This is a continual battle, is it not? Shamefully, I admit that I fear His will or don’t always like the outcome of some of my prayers. But that is just evidence that I am still a huge work in progress. And things won’t change for any of you who are like me until we put ourselves daily in a position of surrender; a posture of relinquished prayer; a true and honest acceptance and assurance that He is God, and He holds ALL things in the palms of His mighty hands.

God used Romans 11 Doxology to put me “in my place” regularly when I dared to question why He allowed this tragedy to befall us. In fact, He used my friend and pastor’s wife Sue years ago to challenge me with this passage in an ever-so-gentle fashion. As she read the Doxology out loud, I retained it immediately as though she was writing it upon my heart. The sheer truth in it changed me forever! It put me in my “right place,” but it also gave me power! POWER to PRAY against the enemy and his schemes, and the POWER to STAND because My God is THE ONE TRUE GOD, and nothing or no one can touch me or mine unless HE chooses! By the grace of God, there is a crazy comfort in that TRUTH.

Romans 11—Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
    How unsearchable His judgments,
    and His paths beyond tracing out!
“Who has known the mind of the Lord?
    Or who has been His counselor?”
“Who has ever given to God,
    that God should repay them?”
For from Him and through Him and for Him are ALL things.
    To Him be the glory forever! Amen.

Oh, if our prayers would mirror the above passage! How much more effective our petitions would be if we acknowledged Him for Who He is, then asked Him how we should pray, and then listened even when the silence is awkward. Those prayers prompted by the Holy Spirit, I feel, would have an impact we never dreamed. Those are the prayers that birth miracles! Those prayers would be "out of the box" prayers—because God lives and thinks out of the box! Out of the box are where miracles happen! Out of the box is where I want to live.

O Lord, teach me to do Your will, for You are my God. As Meagan wrote in her Bible, “Lord God, may I no longer see with my own eyes, but with Yours! In all things!” And so, she does! May it be so for me and you here on earth and in heaven. May we no longer pray with tunnel vision but with YOUR ETERNAL PERSPECTIVE. May we pray Your heart. And then, please give us the strength to bear Your response and walk boldly in it. Speak, Lord, we are listening.

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