What we are is God's gift to us. What we become is our gift to God. - Eleanor Powell
I was challenged yesterday during our Friday college meeting when one of our sisters who went to Mali shared her testimony. She shared how she used to be timid with her prayers always asking of God only “if it be His will….”. She shared her realization while in Mali that Jesus never asked for things in prayer “if God willed it”, but rather prayed fervently and with passion so that he could will his prayer into existence.
I’ve always been timid and overly polite when it comes to praying. I’ve never thought outside the box, so to speak, and never really entertained the idea of speaking to God with authority to demand anything from him (even if it was not a selfish request). My prayers were always laced with “if it be your will”. As I began writing this entry a memory from my experience at Urbana struck me and I remembered a speaker talking about prayer and the power of intercessory prayer. Here’s is the link to the video if you’re interested: http://www.vimeo.com/8467883 .
The speaker (Sunder Krishnan) starts off with a quote from a Christian magazine which I feel represents the type of prayer life I should be striving towards:
“Intercessors have an essential role to play in creating a better future for our world, because intercession is spiritual defiance of what is in the name of what God has promised. The shape of the future will be determined by those who can survey all its various possibilities and who, by faith, latch on to one as inevitable. History belongs to the intercessors who thus believe the future into being.” (Walter Wink, Sojourners Magazine)
I’m now re-evaluating and working on how I pray. How do I pray so that I’m not simply repeating back to God what he already knows? This is something I will be exploring; it will be a long journey but I know it will be enjoyable. Being a Christ Follower is such a dynamic and rich journey; it fills me with so much joy it’s hard to contain at times. I hope that I can share that joy wherever I go, be it the supermarket, my school, at home, or across the world. God is simply too good to hoard for myself.
