Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Prayer
Anthropomorphic
The recognition or perception of human qualities in a divine being such as God.
Why the big word and definition? We are all humans with many hurts, anxieties, fears and needs. We all have someone that we love who needs our prayers; maybe for healing, for addiction recovery, for love, financial woes, comfort for a lost love one, or a broken marriage. So how do we approach God with out prayer requests? Sometimes we mess up in prayer because we assume we know God’s will because something makes sense to us. We assume that God is like us and thinks like us. We assume there is only one right answer to a specific prayer and we “assume” that would be God’s will. Our shortcoming is that we only have limited information about any given situation and the outcome of future action on that situation. God’s understanding is unlimited. How an event or situation in our lives plays out in history or our lives is something that only God knows. God may have purposes far beyond what we could imagine. So God may not do something simply because we determined it must be His will.
What if we become discouraged in our prayer requests? God tells us to give our concerns to Him. Even as the situation becomes bleak, “cast all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.” When things look out of control and everything seems to be falling apart, God can keep us together and give us peace in the midst of everything. Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.”
We have a great body of believers at Vintage Faith who I know believe in the power of prayer. Let the body pray together in bringing certain requests before the Lord and we will see miracles happen.
The recognition or perception of human qualities in a divine being such as God.
Why the big word and definition? We are all humans with many hurts, anxieties, fears and needs. We all have someone that we love who needs our prayers; maybe for healing, for addiction recovery, for love, financial woes, comfort for a lost love one, or a broken marriage. So how do we approach God with out prayer requests? Sometimes we mess up in prayer because we assume we know God’s will because something makes sense to us. We assume that God is like us and thinks like us. We assume there is only one right answer to a specific prayer and we “assume” that would be God’s will. Our shortcoming is that we only have limited information about any given situation and the outcome of future action on that situation. God’s understanding is unlimited. How an event or situation in our lives plays out in history or our lives is something that only God knows. God may have purposes far beyond what we could imagine. So God may not do something simply because we determined it must be His will.
What if we become discouraged in our prayer requests? God tells us to give our concerns to Him. Even as the situation becomes bleak, “cast all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.” When things look out of control and everything seems to be falling apart, God can keep us together and give us peace in the midst of everything. Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.”
We have a great body of believers at Vintage Faith who I know believe in the power of prayer. Let the body pray together in bringing certain requests before the Lord and we will see miracles happen.
