What Are You Expecting When You Pray?

 

Dear 15:5 Family & Friends,

 

Have you noticed how many businesses are “experiencing an unusually high volume of calls over the past several years?”  When does it change from “experiencing unusually high volume of calls”, to “we need to hire more people to answer our phone calls?!?”  When a real person answers, instead of an automated response, I think that I must have dialed the wrong number!  I expect to be put on hold now – sometimes even when I’m calling Martha.

 

God never puts us on hold!  He hears our prayers before we pray them.  He wants us to pour out our hearts to Him over major hurts and minor frustrations.  We are to pray for our needs big and small.  He celebrates with us, and is close to the broken-hearted.  Our thanksgiving and worship are gifts that we offer God in prayer.  We are to lay our fears, guilt, anger, and every struggle at His feet in prayer.  We should anticipate that He hears, and will always answer according to what is best.  Not just what’s best for us – but what’s best for His Kingdom, glory, and pleasure.  As we mature in our relationship with Jesus, we come to understand that the things that are best for His Kingdom and glory are the things that are also the most helpful for us.  God’s plans for us are always better than our plans.

 

This Sunday we will wrap up our month of Prayer & Fasting.  We’re asking you to share how God has spoken to you, answered prayer, or encouraged you in a way that you knew it was from Him.  As we share, we want the focus to be on Jesus and His work in us.  When you share what God has done in you, or is teaching you, it will be a blessing to those who hear.

 

Our hope is that Prayer & Fasting will become a regular part of your spiritual disciplines.  God promises that we will find Him, when we seek Him with all of our hearts!

 

Praying with anticipation for what God will do this Sunday,

Lou