Prayer: Talking to the God who Listens

THIS WEEK has been ALOT of fun for me. I saw a baby bird who couldn't figure out the whole flying thing, so he was hanging out on the ground rather confused. That was sweet and interesting to see. I got to go out to eat with my dear family on Friday. That was a very good burrito. I'm thankful for days like that.
Last week we sang "Mighty to Save" at church, and that was my theme song this week. My dad set up a clock in my room and turned its radio on to 88.1 one night, and I heard that song again that evening. "Savior, He can move the mountains. My God is mighty to save, He is mighty to save. Forever, author of salvation. He rose and conquered the grave, Jesus conquered the grave!" Love that. It's wonderful.
This week I found out that my Aunt Trisha is going to have another baby! That is a wonderful miracle. Hold on for December, we're going to have a little girl or boy just as wonderful as baby Maya. Praise God, that's so awesome.
Okay, so I'm gonna tell you about this really cool week. Last weekend I realized I had three days to prepare for a test on dates for history class. I would have to memorize over a hundred dates for a 25-question test. I was pretty scared as I started, so I prayed that God would help me to memorize this stuff in time. I made a grade of one hundred percent on that test. And on Wednesday and Thursday I had a scary Physics test which was preceded by a badly failed quiz. Yikes. So I kept praying about that - fortunately God has blessed me by giving me a brilliant boyfriend with physics skillz. Will was able to help me study, and I got an 81. Very exciting. Wednesday night I got to go to Youth Group with Will and Isabelle, and we learned about the footholds we can never let the evil one have. This is because if we let him into one area he can get into the rest, and that is a tragedy. So watch out not to let him into these things:

-Thoughts! Romans 12:2 "And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." This is important because thoughts become actions, and if we let our minds chase after anything we have no business with, whether it is lust, hate, revenge, envy, or whatever it may be, those thoughts enter into what we do and make us unable to properly resist temptations, which can be anywhere.

-Pride! Proverbs 16:18 "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." Also 1 John 2:16 "For all that is in the world - the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life - is not of the Father but is of the world." Pride is dangerous: it is the uplifting of oneself so that he believes himself to deserve anything and everything. Pride can make us willing to indulge in sins, and it also does not give glory to God. So it's a very bad thing, and Christians have no business with pride. God loves humility!

Discipline! Proverbs 8:32-34 "'[32] Now therefore, listen to me, my children, for blessed are those who keep my ways. [33] Hear instruction and be wise, and do not disdain it. [34] Blessed is the man who listens to me, watching daily at the gates, waiting at the posts of my doors.'" Jesus often talks about how important it is for a servant to wait carefully and attentively until his master gets home, and He relates this to how we should serve God diligently until the day Jesus comes back. Because you know, He's coming back soon, every day sooner than ever. The evil one would like us to get lazy and stop looking in our Bibles, and stop praying effectively, and stop resisting temptations and fighting bad habits. We are empowered to tell sin NO, so we ought to tell it NO.

-Self-Control! 1 Peter 5:8 "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." Let me make it clear that the devil exists. He's not just all the bad things or the bad people in the world rolled up as one vague, bad entity. He's a jerk, and we hate him. And we don't want him to get a hold anywhere in our lives, so we need to have the self-control to keep from letting him in anywhere, even in the little cracks. Of course, humans are completely incapable of complete and effective restraint by our own power. So what does God do? He makes it so that we can come to Him and humbly ask Him for strength and restraint, as a child asks his dad for a glass of water or help with his homework. He's our Father, and He's God, and everything He does is greater and more powerful than anything anybody else does. So of course He'll make us able to resist evil, and to clip the rope when the devil's trying to climb up. Score.

-Friends! 1 Corinthians 15:33 "Do not be deceived: 'Evil company corrupts good habits.'" You know it's true. If you hang out with people who do things you know are wrong, you start to be less uncomfortable with it, and you very well may start doing it too. And it is not a form of witnessing to hang out with lost people who don't know Christ and do everything they do. In my devotional book, one story compares that to getting stuck in a mud puddle while trying to pull someone else out. It doesn't work. Witnessing demonstrates the difference God makes in us, not our ability to stay clean while exposing ourselves to opportunities to sin. That's just dumb. We can do better than that, with God's help. We can witness effectively by the things we do and say, because of what we are: we are His.

-The Tongue! James 3:6 "And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell." This means that we can cause alot of damage with our words. We can hurt people, we can gossip and insult people, we can lie, we can frighten people, we can even misrepresent Christ with our tongues. Um, that's not good! That's horrible! How about we think a few seconds before we start talking, and be careful what we say about someone or to someone. Little words make a big difference. Christ's words speak truth and holiness and correction and salvation and victory. Why not start reading those, and thereby improve our own words?

I think it's very important to remember that we cannot just sit down and resolve to check off all of these things at the start of the day, and effectively keep from letting the evil one get any footholds on our lives. We just can't decide to be invincible. After all, we could never get it right before, that's why God sent Jesus, so He would be with us making us able to do anything, for "With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." We can't make ourselves good enough, so He makes us good enough. No baby bird can learn to fly on his own, and no baby person learns to walk on his own. Our Heavenly Father answers when we call and promises to hear us and help us.
At Life Group with Jenny White and the other girls we talked about the Prayer and Worship, chapter 8 in the Purple Book, and I learned something very important. Since prayer is one of two vital ways in which we communicate with God (the other being worship) we must be sure to pray effectively. This means that we must trust Him that He hears, and that because He hears He will answer. In Matthew 21:22 Jesus says "And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive." Now, this doesn't mean that we get anything we think will make us happy. As Jenny pointed out, God is not a magic genie who will grant every wish despite the consequences. If Jenny says "God, I want a pink pony!" He probably won't give it to her because she can't take care of it and because it would make a mess and cause her to be evicted from her apartment. But she asked God to allow her to get a vacuum for her apartment because she really needed one, and guess what? God provided one. I actually tried this a few hours ago. I was looking for one article of clothing before I could go take my shower and I was having alot of trouble, so I asked God to help me find one, and I found it in a few minutes. Yay! God knows we need things. Matthew 7:7-11 "[7] Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. [8] For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. [9] Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? [10] Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? [11] If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!"
God is our Father, and dads take care of their kids. They give them what they need. Notice that Jesus says that He will give "good things" to those who ask. He doesn't say He'll give whatever we want. After all, if kids got everything they wanted we'd have a bunch of spoiled, overweight, grumpy, rude children with too many toys and not very many friends. God doesn't want us to be like that. He knows what's good for us. He does answer prayer, definitely, absolutely! He just doesn't always answer "Yes." There are three things He might say when we ask Him for something.
He might say "Yes." If we ask for something we need, something good which helps us to pursue holiness, He says yes and provides it. If we ask Him to help us resist temptations and keep our hearts and minds focused and intent upon Him, and to give us hearts like the early church which desire Him with all devotion and sincerity, He'll say yes. Of course He will, that's what He wants, too. Not only big things, but small things too. He'll helps us seek Him, and He'll help us drive safely, and spend money wisely, and have kind words, and get a vacuum if that's what He thinks we need.
God also might say "No." If we ask out of pride, thinking we deserve something, or if we ask for something that doesn't please Him, He's gonna say no. That's like a dad saying "No, you can't have Sugar O's with extra sugar for breakfast. It's not good for you." He might say "You can have some oatmeal," which hardly anyone likes, but you know it's very good for you. He can say we have to go through a little discomfort to grow up healthy, strong servants.
He also might say "Wait!" An example is waiting for the right person to marry. This one is cute, and that one is okay, but you know God has somebody amazing for you somewhere. He knows everybody wants to be married someday. He will bless those who are patient and wait on Him, trusting Him, whether in regards to marriage or in any other thing, that He will supply for our needs and answer our prayers so that it turns out for the best. The worst thing we can do is decide He doesn't care because we don't understand why it had to happen this way or that way, when we prayed so hard for this one to heal and for that one to come to Christ. He wants us to trust Him anyway, because whatever the cause, God knows what the reasons are. He is good no matter what happens, and He wants us to believe that even when does happen which seems bad to us.
I learned that it is important to pray effectively, believing that we will receive what we ask if it is within His will, even if it doesn't come about how we expect. I personally have a very long list of names to pray for, and I realized that it isn't right to just rail them off night after night. It's good to pray for them, but I must trust that God knows who they are and that He won't forget if I forget this one one night, or if I only mention this one's name. Praying effectively is really talking to God, glorifying Him as we pray, sincerely caring for everybody on our prayer lists, not demanding stacks of riches but being thankful for our daily bread. The more effectively we pray and worship and the more attentively we listen to and read His Word, the greater our relationship with God can be. And that's just awesome. God loves us very much. He's the only one you'll never, ever lose.
Thank you for reading. Please post any comment, and miracle, any additional thought. I'd love to hear it. Have a beautiful, blessed week.