By James Brown
It has been said that prayer is not getting God prepared to do your will, but prayer is about getting you prepared to do God's will.
God is gracious to his people. God is gracious to all people. Throughout a lifetime you will experience all manner of blessings, but you can also experience the joy of partnering with God in these blessings. How? By partnering with God in prayer.
The Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6 teaches us to pray for God's will to be done. But as we pray for his will, our will begins to change. As we pray for his kingdom, we invite him into our lives to reign. As we pray for his name, we become less concerned with our own fame. Slowly but surely we begin to want what He wants. Slowly but surely you begin to pray like he prays. You become one with him and start to see things like he does.
Now and then I come to God with some offence or gripe. But as I articulate it to Him and am able to hear what’s on my heart, I’m able to see my problem from God’s perspective. Bringing my problem to God brings God into my problem, so that what may have been an issue now becomes quite trivial. Bringing my problems into the perspective of the cross, bringing my problems into the context of his kingdom, bringing my problems into the light of His love changes the nature of my problems.
Prayer is where I realise that my daily bread is for doing His will and that the trespasses I forgive are for the sake of His name. Seeing things God's way is seeing the things the best way and we can have this view by bringing all our burdens to God in prayer
(image from unsplash.com, by Alex Shute)