Your Prayers Are Answered

I was walking down the street the other day and couldn't help thinking about prayer. What an amazing thing. The ability to communicate personally with the creator of the universe. Honestly it seems too good to be true, and a lot of people fall into that trap. If you believe in the Bible, then you believe that God loves us so much that He sent His only son to die on the cross for US. Obviously if you don't believe, then this is impossible.

My point today is less about the validity of this, and more about the content of our prayers. This will be a rather short post (hopefully) haha. I had a small revelation about what people pray about. Think about it, do you pray for health? Do you pray for financial gain? For things of this world? I definitely do. While God already knows what we are going to ask for before we even ask (Matthew 6:8), we are still encouraged to ask anything our hearts desire with the promise that God will fulfill this.

Now a big "gotcha" point that a lot of non-believers try to point to is how God never actually "answers" prayer. You get the scenario of the aunt or grandma that had cancer, and even though the family prayed and prayed, well, she just didn't get any better. BAM GOTCHA, proof that God doesn't exist? Right? RIGHT?! I don't agree.

First of all let me start with my own experience. There are many prayers that I send up everyday without even giving them a second thought. "Lord please have today go smoothly, I have a rough schedule" "Please help my ears be unplugged" etc etc etc. So many times these things are given to me and I don't even accredit them to God. I can easily justify anything away with logic. "Oh the kids were in a good mood today, so it felt easy" "I went up a mountain today so the altitude helped pop my ears".

It's not that I'm even thinking to discredit God, I just don't even connect 2 and 2 that I had prayed about it, and my prayers were answered. Sure sure, I know what you're thinking, it's a coincidence. You're projecting onto God and stuffs. Nah bro, I see Him in my life. Of course I don't physically see Him (if I did then I would have to die, see Israel when Moses went up the mount of Sinai), but I look for Him in my life, and I see true evidence.

Beyond this it is my true belief that God answers prayers when the timing is best for us. Think about it, even in a logical argument, is someone that's asking for $1,000,000 probably ready to actually receive $1,000,000? Even if they're homeless and without food, someone with that type of prayer in mind doesn't have the right attitude to come before God. Their priorities are wrong, and even if God granted their request, they wouldn't appreciate it.

Praying for health is not so much different in my opinion, it's all part of prosperity Gospel. I've had conversations with friends about this topic, and while it's a tough pill to swallow sometimes (no pun intended), if you believe, God has full knowledge and power, and allows certain situations to happen using that which we do not possess.

I think a lot of times people get WAYYYY too caught up in this life, and how important it is to them. Am I saying I don't value my life here? No, of course not. But you have to understand that God sees past this life, into eternity. Is someone passing from this earth sad? Yes, to those of us who lose that connection, however, if that person has earned salvation then there is no real reason to be sad. Did God allow that situation where your aunt passed from cancer to allow you to grow closer to Him? Did you?

Or maybe the opposite happened, you became near sighted and angry at God. Your heart became hard, and therefore showed your true nature towards God. There are many examples of this in the Bible, not un-notable would be the pharaoh of Egypt hardening his heart towards letting the Israelites go. Did God actively go into his heart and make it so he said no? No, but he allowed the situation to arise where pharaoh would have the chance to fall into his own denial.

Look closer at your prayer life, and what you pray for. "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." (Matthew 6:21) I know I have.

Anyways, thanks for reading everyone! I'll definitely post again soon, take care!

Desire and Discipline

Hey guys! As per usual it's been awhile. I hope to remedy that however. I am searching for a way to put my thoughts into words more consistently. I'll be fully honest, I have many many thoughts that go unwritten or recorded because I think about the effort and time it will take to put them into my blog and it's overwhelming.

Now I realize how selfish this point of view is, especially considering that as my blog has become more spiritual in nature, it has become less for my benefit and more for you, the reader's, benefit. I feel that God has given me this as part of my calling. I don't know if it's to be my only focus (I highly doubt it based on my history of having "career ADD" lol) but if it is then I will do my best to do it as well as I can.

You see, my motivation tends to come in waves. I am an extremely emotional person in that sense. I assume that there are many people this way, and I am just immature in my work ethic. This is something that I'm continually learning about myself. Things came relatively easy to me growing up, therefore I never had to work too hard for them. So now, more and more in my life I see myself just throwing to the side anything that I have to think hard about or work hard for. What a horrible horrible way to live. What a great way to never truly appreciate anything all that much.

Anyways, my plan is to write short posts each day on a given topic. I already have at least a week's worth of topics to write on. Otherwise as I said, I tend to think about how long the post will end up being, because I just have so much to say. As I write this, things are already getting too lengthy so I will do my best to sum up. I assume that you guys will also appreciate smaller, easier to digest posts.

My relationship with God has been a roller coaster lately. I start to press into Him, and He gives me the revelation that I ask for, and then soon after I become scared. I become overwhelmed with what I'm learning. I understand what it takes to go deep into faith, and my flesh is still holding onto this notion that I still want something to do with the world. I'm afraid to let go of the desires of money, and a nice house, and nice cars, etc.

I don't even really know why at this point. I don't really care all that much about those things anymore, yet I still pull back. It's like checking the water. I put my toe in, and then instantly pull back out. Anyways, my topic for today is being overwhelmed by God.

Personally I feel that my own reservations are nothing compared with that which the disciples must have felt after Jesus was taken from them. How overwhelming must it have been to know you have to write about the life of the Christ? I assume that's why it took a few of them so long to even be done. Writing a few lines each day is nothing compared to that. While my feelings are still valid, and I am subject to them, what I'm saying is that I need to push through them. I need to pray. I need God to help me with my desire and discipline.

Amen.

Thanks for reading! As I've promised a few times prior, I hope to be putting out much more consistent blog posts now. I have begun to eliminate a lot of the distractions from my life, and I feel much more in control now. I feel that I will be able to continue on what I've started.

As always, feel free to leave comments or questions! I love to hear from you guys. Talk to you soon!