John Piper on Prayer

God has designed and ordained and planned and promised that he will act for us when we pray. God has promised to do for us things we cannot do our ourselves when we pray—that is, when we get on our faces before God and confess our sins, and give thanks for his grace, and lift up the cup of salvation, and plead for him to fill it with supernatural blessings for the needs in our lives and families and church and business and city and nation and world.

Is it not breathtaking to hear Jesus say, “ Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7). Isn't it breathtaking to hear his brother James say, “ You do not have, because you do not ask” (James 4:2)! Or to put it positively, “If you had asked, God would have acted to meet your need.” This is astonishing: God acts in response to prayer. The all-knowing, all-foreseeing, all-planning, all-governing God wills for your Christ-exalting prayers to be the occasion of his action.

John Piper, "Let Your Requests Be Made Known to God"

One of the [many] things that I am trying to learn about and put into practice is prayer. Despite having grown up in the church and having prayed many a prayer over the years, I know that this is an area of my life where there is much room for improvement. A big part of the problem is my lack of discipline in prioritizing prayer; also significant, I'm sure, is that my understanding of prayer and its purpose is very inadequate. I know that prayer is important, and I'veseen God answer prayers more times than I can count, but from the little time and emphasis I actually give to praying, it's pretty clear that I don't quite "get" it. I want to, though, because I know that it's such a huge part of seeking and knowing and loving and following God; I want my relationship with Him to be deeper than it is right now. So, with two dear friends promising to help keep me accountable in this, I am focusing both on learning more about prayer and on being more purposeful in praying. So, pray for me, if you will; I'm excited to see where God takes me with this :)

What I Want is You!

"Even in my own life right now, I have been unable in the decision that I've got to make to say, 'This is what the Lord wants me to do.' But what the Spirit of God has unleashed in my heart is this prayer: 'I want You! And if You're in this marriage, and if You're in this opportunity, and if You're in this financial decision, and if You're in this job opportunity, and if You're in this place, that's where I want to be! What I want is You!'" (Matt Chandler)

I'm doing a book study this summer with two of my dearest friends, Sabrina and Everly, and we're going through Discipline: The Glad Surrender by Elisabeth Elliot. Today, despite quite a number of distractions going on around us in the coffeehouse where we met, we discussed the chapter entitled "A Sovereign God and

Man's Choice." The main idea throughout this chapter is that there are two wills--God's and ours--and that, though God is sovereignly in control of every imaginable detail of life and existence, He has "arranged things in such a way that His own action is coupled with the action of men." He allows us, sinful and broken as we are, "the dignity to act in freedom and thus to have a willed part in what He does." Not only does He give us a choice as to whether or not we will act in accordance with Him, but He ALLOWS us to do just that--be participants in the incredible (and eternal!) work He is doing in our lives, in the lives of those around us, and perhaps even in the lives of people we will never meet on this earth. That is truly mind-boggling if you really stop to think about it; as David said in Psalm 8:4, "What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You care for him?" Our all-powerful God, Creator of the universe, lets us be a part of His plan. Amazing.

Along with this, Sabrina, Everly and I got to talking about our tendency to get caught up in trying to see and figure out "the big picture" (i.e. God's grand plan/His will for our lives) to the neglect of the seemingly smaller and/or mundane things of life. Speaking for myself, I frequently find myself wondering what God's plan for me is--what I'm supposed to do with my life, where I'm supposed to go, whether or not I'll get married/have kids/live overseas, etc. While it's not wrong to think about these things and even consider them to some degree, the problem is that when I become so focused on that abstract Future and begin to obsess about figuring out what God wants me to do, I quickly forget that He's already TOLD me what to do. I am to be faithful in my day-to-day life to seek Him and to obey His Word. I am to love the LORD my God with all my heart and with all my soul and with all my strength and with all my mind, and I am to love my neighbor as myself (Luke 10:27). It's really not as complicated as I tend to make it. I may not know right now what the future holds, but you know what? That's ok. If I am focusing on my relationship with God and being obedient in the daily "small" matters of life, the "grand plan" is being worked out within that. God is not trying to keep His will from me. Rather, He declares to us in Jeremiah 29:13-14a that "you will seek Me and find Me, when you seek Me with all your heart. I will be found by you." What a beautiful promise. And truly, what is better than that, than finding God? What else really matters? So regardless of where I am or what I'm doing, may I echo Matt Chandler's prayer: "If You're in this place, that's where I want to be! What I want is You!"