The Secret To Getting What You Want Through PrayerПримерок

Have you ever noticed that the less you feel you need the answer to your prayer, the easier it is to believe you will receive it?

Read that line again. Go ahead. It’s important.

The prayers you pray that you are less tied to their outcome—do they seem to get answers more quickly than the rest? How about the ones you toss up without much thought at all? Do they seem to “work better” than the ones you spend a good deal of time with on your knees? I can get excellent parking spaces all day long by thinking a quick little prayer simply because I’m just not highly invested in the outcome. So my faith is there.

Yet the more I feel I need whatever the answer to my prayer is, the harder it seems to have the faith to support that prayer. 

Maybe it’s the same for you. Maybe not. But I have a feeling it is. I have a feeling it’s the same for all of us. 

Yet, as with that elephant in the room, we rarely want to admit it or talk about it. It doesn’t sound very spiritual at all. We’re told to pray. We sing songs about praying. We try to pump ourselves up by reminding ourselves that prayer will change everything. We watch movies on prayer. And prayer definitely has the potential and power to change everything. 

But far too often, we’ve seen our own prayers go unanswered or—worse yet—felt like they didn’t get heard at all. The addiction remains. The depression lingers. The loneliness goes unresolved. The child stays distant. The marriage or dating relationship grows even more stagnant, empty or even controlling. The credit cards pile high. The health problems get worse. Or we keep clocking in at the same meaningless job.

When this happens enough times in life, you and I begin to pray guarded prayers. We still pray.. I’m not saying we stop praying altogether. After all, we are Christians, and we go to church and post spiritual inspirations on our social media sites. Prayer is as Christian as apple pie is American. 

The difference, though, is we now say prayers with parameters. 

We erect conditions around what we truly want because if God doesn’t provide—like He didn’t the last time and even the time before that, we need a way to let Him off the hook. We need to keep our spiritual hope in tact. We need to set up that buffer between our trusting hearts and what might wind up being another deeply painful disillusioning disappointment. 

But safe prayers don’t work. Remember? 

It’s faith that moves mountains. Not precaution.

And even if safe prayers do appear to work at times, their outcome is usually temporary—leading to yet another reversal of hope.

To pray with authority and to receive answered prayers in those areas we hope for the most, we can no longer pray safe prayers. We must risk disappointment. Risk disillusionment. Give God every opportunity to let us down. Because in doing so, we are also giving Him every opportunity to come through as well.