I was mulling this over recently and found it elsewhere, too. Surprisingly, it was in the Old Testament.
Delight yourself in YHWH, and He will give you the desires of your heart. (Psa 37:4)What a statement! "He will give you the desires of your heart." That means that I can wish for ... money and fame and power and ... and, of course, you see right away how off this line of thinking is because of the premise. If my delight is in the Lord, what will my desires be? They will be those things that please the Lord. They will be those things that honor and glorify God. If my greatest delight is in God, my deepest desires will be for God's best interests. And, of course, He's more than happy to give me those desires.
There are lots of books written on the importance and secrets of prayer. I think this one is perhaps neglected and certainly not practiced as much as it ought to be. We need to turn our hearts to Christ. We need to find our greatest delight in God. We need to make Jesus our greatest treasure (Matt 6:21). We need to turn aside from all our worldly desires and find our greatest joy in God's desires. How? By dwelling in Christ. By immersing ourselves in His Word. By seeking what He wants and asking for it. I think it's a critical secret to a powerful prayer life ... and an abundant life.
4 comments:
We too often view God as the great butler in the sky, but we forget that we are to view ourselves as His slaves. When we orient our desires to fulfilling His, then of course we'll receive whatever we all for.
You are right that the preeminent desire to delight in the Lord and to know Him better will impact much more than our prayers; it will guide our entire lives, including the use of our resources and the formation of our plans and goals. When I was a brand-new Christian, someone gave me the book, How Should We Then Live? by Francis Schaeffer, to read. I don’t think I got through it all, but the title stuck with me ever since then. (More recently, I also read a similarly titled book by Charles Colson & Nancy Pearcey, How Now Shall We Live? but, once again, only the title stuck with me.) When I consider that query, I always know the answer is, “according to a knowledge of God and His will, which His Word will reveal to you.” Delighting in that quest above all else will keep one occupied and engaged a lifetime, of course.
Thinking more about the aspect of praying according to God’s will, which we are able to do only as we abide in Christ: I just happened to be flipping through a book about prayer, and the author has a chapter on “understanding boldness” as it relates to going “Before the Throne of Grace” (the title of the book) (based on Heb. 4:16). The chapter is based on the same verses you quoted (1 John 5:14-15) and points out that God always hears us, of course, but that “He is listening with a view of responding,” i.e. waiting to hear the requests from us that please Him, in order to do that very thing that He is willing and delighted to do--if only we asked. This book’s author expressed the same thought that you did: that this is a vital aspect of prayer often neglected. As we delight in the Lord, it’s wonderful to realize that God also delights in us, especially in “the prayer of the upright” (Prov. 15:8).
James's "You have not because you ask not" (James 4:2) is really compelling.
Post a Comment