God wants to do something bigger
than simply answer my prayers.
PAUL E. MILLER, A Praying Life
Do you ever ask for the same things over and over?
Better sleep and less pain are two of my repetitive prayers. But I wonder, if through my asking—regardless of the answer—is he changing me?
The act of praying draws God into my life
and begins to change me,
the pray-er, in subtle ways.
Is he shaping me through the “no” answer? Or at least the “not yet” one?
Is simply keeping up my end of the conversation doing more than I realize?
I often find that when God
doesn’t answer a prayer,
he wants to expose something in me.
I don’t know the answer yet.
Maybe enough time hasn’t passed.
Maybe I’m still in the middle of something.
Something bigger than the request itself.
Our prayers don’t exist in a world of their own.
We are in dialogue with a personal, divine Spirit
who wants to shape us as much as he wants to hear us.
For now, by faith I’ll keep asking him.
For later, by grace he’ll keep changing me.
Only a God as wise as ours can straighten us out as he untwists our gnarly questions.
I may not sleep again tonight, but as I lie awake, I can talk to him about it.
And as we talk, I’ll rest, knowing he is at work in me.
* * *
Have you seen God change you through your prayers?
