Reflections on prayer

So I’m relaxing on Maui this month with family and having some chance to reflect. I feel like i'm going better integrating the life i had here with the life i have now. but more on that later - it's been giving me some time to reflect at least.

Often I pray out of a deeply felt need or frustration over something. I believe God loves praying out of brokenness – Psalm 34:18 The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. But with a little distance from the daily rush of life, I’m realizing that often I just want to feel better about whatever situation I’m praying about. Or I just want it to be easier to live a faithful, ministry focused life. Or I have an agenda of what I would like to see happen and I’m asking God to make that happen. I’m not really seeking what God is doing, or how I can be obedient in this situation or any steps of obedience He wants me to take. I just want it all to go away or find some security or feel better about the way my life is going. Yuck. I wish I could say my motives were nobler.

Perhaps that is why God so often brings up situations or issues that keep me on my knees. If things were actually easy and I felt secure I wouldn’t be there very often because I’d be breezing along thinking I was doing a great job completely ignoring the lessons God was teaching me or the ways He is shaping my character. And I must say, while that way sounds more fun, being kept on my knees generally on a daily basis yields more fruit. Somewhere in the garbled, selfish, not-quite-pure prayers God finds something beautiful in me and what He is doing. And even if I am pushing my own agenda or asking for something that isn’t possible God still works gently into what He wants for me. So I'll keep seeking in my shaky, sporadic, imperfect way.