Ask Of God

(HT: Desiring God)

What Have You Prayed For Recently? And Has God Been Answering The Way You've Been Praying?

I read this over at Life2gether and thought it was a pretty simple approach to measuring our prayer life. I really like the idea of maintaining focus on what we've been praying for and how much of our aim in prayer has been tuned to the will of God. It helps to look back and remember what we prayed for two-three months ago. Good little post here.

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Recently I was talking to my twin brother on skype and he brought up a good question to diagnose your prayer life:

What are 3 answers to prayer you’ve had this past year?

This is a great question because it makes us think about what we’ve been asking God to do and whether or not we’ve remembered what He has done. No doubt, prayer is more than just getting an “answer” from God, but sometimes we need to remember to ask him things like a little child believing that he will answer. How does a child ask? Here’s what Paul Miller says in his book, A Praying Life:

•What do they ask for? Everything and anything.
•How often do children ask? Repeatedly.
•How do children ask? Without guile. They just say what’s on their minds.

May we pray like a child this year believing that God can do more than we could ask or think!

(HT: Life2gether)

God's Mercy On Par With My Hope?

Let Thy lovingkindness, O Lord, be upon us, According as we have hoped in Thee. ~ Psalm 33.22

I've never prayed like this before....and I've never sung a song like this before.

I've never prayed that God's mercy would be shown to me on the same level as I hope in Him. It seems at first that this would be a frightening prayer to pray. The reason for this is because I don't see myself hoping in God on the same level that I need His mercy/His lovingkindness.

So I believe this verse of scripture should pierce anyone who reads it with a meditative mind and with a heart that desires sanctification.

Albert Barnes expounds on the verse when he writes,

"The true principle, therefore, upon which God is willing to bestow His favors, and which will be the rule that He will observe, is, that if people desire much, they will obtain much; that if they have big expectations, they will not be disappointed; and that God is willing to bestow His mercies upon His people and upon the world to the utmost of their desires and hopes. Compare Psalm 81:10, "Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it." Psalm 37:4, "delight thyself in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thy heart."

So how intense and fervent, then, should be the prayers and the petitions of the people of God! How earnest the supplications of sinners that God would have mercy on them!"

Would You Pray This Prayer?

(HT: Josh Harris)