It's so easy for me to get caught up in my life's daily problems. To pray and to ask simply, "Help.. please? Could you give me wisdom for this and this and this situation that's going on. Thanks."
And that very prayer is flawed.
Not that many days ago, I read a friend's *blog post* and it really challenged some of my assumptions and the rut that I had allowed myself to fall into regarding prayer and life in general.
Please take the time to read all of it and think about what it means when applied to your life... it's worth it.
{Note: Whenever I put stars around anything, that normally means it's linked, unless the stars are around a word that was also included in the title, such as my blog post titled In One of *Those* Days}
The part that hit me the hardest was the very last phrase: "We need not say 'please', only 'thank you'."
Woah.
Do you realize the truth embodied in that one statement? Incredible.
The truth is, we have already been blessed in immeasurable ways by our Father, and there's nothing... absolutely nothing... that we have to ask for because He has already given it to us.
Now this doesn't mean that He doesn't want to hear our prayers or requests. Not in the least. Rather, it changes a prayer of "Please give me wisdom!" to one of "Thank you for Your wisdom. Please help me to apply Your principles and Your ways to this situation in my life."
Do you see?
And this is what I've been struggling with recently in my life. I want to get certain things in my life settled in the eyes of God (again, searching for wisdom in a certain situation, or wondering if something's going His way or not), somehow thinking that I have to have those things figured out before I can just approach Him and get to know Him.
As if I need to figure out my life, before getting to know the Creator of my life.
And that's just it. It seems obvious, doesn't it, that you would start at the beginning to work on the mess, instead of just working to clean up the mess?
This morning, the message was preached from Mark 5:21-43, and it was based upon Jesus being the hope to the hopeless, etc.
One analogy our pastor gave really applied to this.
Evidently, in the past, when officials wanted to see if insane asylum patients were ready to go back to their homes, they would give them a test.
They would put the patient in a room with a sink, put the plug in and turn on the faucet. Once the sink began to overflow, they would give the patient a mop and instruct him to clean it up.
If the patient realized that he had to first turn off the faucet, unplug the plug and then start mopping, he was considered ready to go home. If he just started to mop without unplugging the plug or turning off the faucet, he was kept at the insane asylum.
The analogy applies to us in situations that are hopeless in that we should be getting back to the source, the real Hope, instead of just working on the mess in our lives.
And that really challenged me. When I am resting in my Creator, meeting with Him and growing in my understanding of Him, then, naturally, my life will begin to reflect this relationship. I will face situations and can draw upon the wisdom in His Word and through what the Holy Spirit reveals to me, and know what the right thing to do is.
I get so wrapped up in the things that are happening in my everyday life, but they will only be truly fixed when I am fixated on the Source. And this seems so obvious when I return to His Word:
"Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need." (Matthew 6:33, NLT)
Sometimes I am under the illusion that surrendering to God is going to take away from who I am. That it'll put me under unnecessary pain, that it will be boring, take the fun out of life, etc.
As if when I give it all to the Creator, I become anything less than what He fully created me to be.
He is my Source. I need no other. He is all I need.
I used to think that this song was slightly stuck-up until I started listening closer. It's not saying, "Satisfy me. Come here and fill me up." No, rather, it is saying, "Teach me that you are all that I need. You should be my satisfaction... show me. I want You to be what satisfies me."
Well, I hope that you've stayed with me this far and that God spoke to you through something I said. To Him be the glory for we have been given everything we need.
He is the Source, and our Satisfaction.
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