Tuesday (The Power of Prayer or Asking)
This topic seems obvious, but I will go ahead and blog about it anyway because God can never receive too much credit. In the Bible, prayer or asking is talked about many times in verses like (Matt 7:7, Mark 11:24, etc.).
One thing I have always wondered is why God makes us ask if He already knows what we are going to ask (Matt 6:8) and He already knows what His answer will be. He knows our thoughts and desires. Why does He make us verbalize?
I don't know that this is actually the answer, but this is what I think. I think when we say things out loud or ask them, it takes your request to another level. It shows commitment, and that it truly is something you want. Our minds can, and very often do, wander aimlessly. We may come up with many random things we want from God every minute of every day. Asking is a premeditated activity. You have thought about it previously and determined that you have a need. And our God is a provider of needs, among other things.
When I was a sophomore, we had a remnants version of Chi Alpha on campus here. We had a men's bible study (cause we didn't know any women that wanted to come yet), and a Thursday morning prayer, but no full time staff or campus pastor. During those Thursday morning prayers, we would pray for many things like our school work, or the campus in general. By this time, God was beginning to turn my life around (even though I didn't know it at the time). Every Thursday morning I would usually find a corner and offer personal requests.
One thing I can vividly remember (because God answered) praying for is more people to help with Chi Alpha. I saw what we had with our two part-time grad students pouring all they could into the small group bible study we had. I just knew things would take off if we could just get someone full time to come here and do the work of the Lord. Every week I would cry out.
I guess somewhat to my surprise, God heard and answered.
He sometimes has a way of over-answering prayers. Instead of sending one person to Purdue, he sent three (and has since added another). Of course God knows that we needed all three of them to come here to serve to get things off the ground for Chi Alpha. I never really had a vision about what would happen, but I just had a gut feeling that if we just had some full-time people, things would take off, and boy have they ever!
What started out as a 5-9 person bible study on Tuesday nights has morphed into a Friday meeting with 75 ish people, prayer meetings each morning, and Tuesday evening prayers that have more people in attendance than the original bible study meetings and prayer meetings from just 3 years ago, and more friends than I could ever imagine (more on that later perhaps...).
Be careful what you ask for... You just might get it... And perhaps even more than you can imagine...
Whoa! there's a PART 3!!!
ReplyDeleteHaha... I like this very much! Whoa! God can "over-answer" our prayer (which, of course, is a good thing)I think this is really cool.
Yea I used to wonder why God would want us to talk to Him and ask Him for certain things if He already knows what our desires are. Then I realize, it's by speaking out our needs that we reassure ourselves these are the areas that God want us to focus on, and to bear witness on His work. It is so that when His work is done, we would be able to recognize them and cry out "Whoa! This is exactly what I prayed for. And God heard me!"
If we never pray and cry out to Him, our mind would just wander around. We would not be able to identify what our needs really are. And so, we would miss and unable to recognize the amazing things He is doing.
I don't know if it is biblical for me to say these. But thought that I would just share what I am thinking.
*waiting for your Part 4*