“Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.” – Psa 103:2
As I began really listening to myself pray lately, I was surprised to find how much my prayers were revealing a deep distrust in God instead of a deep trust in Him. Exactly the opposite of what I intended to convey in my prayer life. I am so thankful for God’s great patience with me. As I have been learning to trust God and believe His word more, I find myself spending more and more time praising and thanking Him for His goodness then I do in praying. Let me show you what I mean.
God be with Him
I was praying for a local pastor as he was undergoing surgery and I found myself praying, “God be with him.” I’ve actually prayed this phrase quite often over the years for several people as they were traveling, interviewing, struggling and so on. But as I was praying for it once again, I could almost hear God ask me, “Am I not with him already?”
“Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” – Heb. 13:5
I knew that…but…I wasn’t hanging my faith on His word as I was praying and asking God to do what He had already promised to do and was already actively doing. This pastor was already in God’s hands as we all are. God is already always with his children. He was no less and no more closer to this pastor now while he was under the knife of a surgeon then He was yesterday while he shared dinner with his family. In reality, nothing had changed in regards to God’s presence. God had not turned his back or grown distant. He was already present and His presence was already fully with him as it always had been and would be. God is faithful.
So I began correcting my prayers and turning this particular request into the following praise:
“Father, I thank you that you are always with us, that you never leave us and that you are as close to him right now under the knife of the surgeon as you were yesterday and as you will be tomorrow. Your care and attention to him and to us never changes with the circumstances but your ways and your presence are unchanging for us. I thank you for the underlying peace and knowledge that though everything on the outside appearances has changed, in reality nothing has changed. You are our anchor in the storm who keeps our hearts still.”
Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please
This wasn’t a first time insight but has been a gradual transforming of the mind that started earlier this year as my husband was having gall bladder surgery. I was extremely distressed as I waited outside in the waiting room. Anxiety and tears had swept me away like a river current. I was anything but stable inside as I waited for the electronic disk I was holding to light up signaling the surgery was over and I was to head to the family consultation room for the results. Even though it was a pretty minor and routine surgery it was major to me. I silently prayed over and over and over and over again like a broken record begging God to please, please, please, please guide the doctor’s hands during this surgery and protect him.
It was then that I began correcting myself as I prayed and my most anxious prayers began their transformation into faith filled praise as I allowed God’s truth to filter them. I remembered who God was, who I was praying to and what He had already promised to do. He was and is my loving Father, who is always willing to listen and who deals with me out of his unfailing love. Why was I then repeatedly begging Him over and over and over again as if He was cold, distant, hard of hearing or unwilling? As if I had to convince Him to help me and protect my husband when I knew He is most gracious, willing and had already been actively doing so for years. My prayers revealed my lack of faith in who He said He was and how He relates to me. I admit I still cried a bit because that is what I do best, but my deep anxiety and fear began to fade the more I praised God for being who I knew His word revealed Him to be towards me, the “compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.” – Psalm 86:15. Although I continued to pray with persistence, something very subtle changed the tone of my prayers. Faith. My anxiety was comforted as I remembered He was already active and moving behind the scenes and in the mix of things. I knew whatever the outcome it would be filtered through His unfailing love for the both of us. I didn’t have to beg him to help me, He cared for me. I just had to go to Him, lay my burdens at His feet and trust Him.
Watchman Nee once wrote in his book the Overcoming Life that:
“There are two sections to our praises and thanksgiving. One section happens before the victory, and the other section happens after the victory. The great mistake that we make today is that we do not have the praise that is uttered before the victory; we hold back this praise and wait to see what happens.…Every overcomer should have two praises: praises before his eyes see the result and praises after his eyes see the result. This is the tone of victory….Brothers and sisters, if you want to wait for the result before you dare say that you have the overcoming life, you are believing your own experience and not God’s Word. “
It is praise in the midst of the storm that brings the most glory to God. It is knowing and trusting who it is that rocks the waves of the sea beneath us. When I don’t place my trust and faith in Him, my more desperate prayers tend to increase my anxiety instead of confronting and eliminating them. They become an outpouring of my disbelief instead of an outpouring of my belief. It is praise that realigns my heart and mind with the way things really are when fear and anxiety try to distract me. It is praise that anchors my heart back to reality and quiets my overly anxious heart by reminding me of how faithful He is who holds me.
What other prayer requests can you think of that are commonly prayed asking God for things he has already done or provided to us in Christ? How can we realize them?
