When In Prayer

Many times in prayer we find ourselves praying to God about a difficult situation.

It could be a failure we are dealing with or the consequences of such a failure. It could be a mortal threat on ourselves or loved one. It could be pressure from an enemy, or the circumstances created by a loved one.

So we find ourselves bringing the frustration, the pain and the pressure before God.

This is right, this is healthy, this is Christian - to cast all our cares on the One who holds all thing together and who brings all things together for the good of those who have been called according to His purpose.

What We Bring

In this place of encountering God when we are stressed or in need there is one thing we should not lift up before Him.

Denial.

All too often we pray for a wishful condition - that God would somehow rewrite history or reverse time so that the failure didn't happen or the disease did not take hold or the circumstances never took place.

This is not only useless, it is harmful.

The failure happened, the disease came, the circumstances are real.

What we need is God's intervention, His healing, His restoration, His ability to reconcile people back together.

We do NOT need a time machine - a tool to unravel the cause of our pain from existence.

God does not reverse history, rewrite events, or move forward as if the unwanted and painful parts of life had never happened.

The desire for this comes from an unhealthy place, a place where fear, anxiety, and pride dwell. God can not work in that place, where reality is rejected.

Bad things happen, mistakes are made, failures occur, disease comes, people betray.

Enemy of Divine Intimacy

Our prayers are first not a recipe for life correction, but of God connection - a point of intimate fellowship between us and God.

It's where He can take all of our worry, our pain, our fear, and our shame on Himself and give us hope, peace, perspective, and acceptance in return.

In that place, denial is the enemy.

We cannot wish away the bad things of life there.

We cannot ask for situations to be erased from existence.

Painful Honesty

In this place, we need to accept the full weight of our fear, pain, and worry - and cast all of it on him.

It is from there that God moves, pouring healing power on the sick and broken parts of our lives, His restoration on the things that have been taken or destroyed, His reconciliation in our broken relationships. 

This is the power of God, it is poured out on real problems not wishful solutions. It applies to the all-too-real problems in our lives in a way that only He can do.

So, we can lay down our wishful thinking, our denial of what is all-too-real.

We can accept that our fear is real and then cast all of it on Him.

For He cares for us.

He cares for all of us.