The more I Pray, the more I'm seeing a pattern. Let me know if this is any on you.
God, who hears every prayer, has fullness of Free Will, and desires to Love and care for all of His creation, is the Answerer of these requests, or the recipient of the praise and worship and thanksgiving we give. Take a look at David, in Psalms 25. To You, O Lord , I lift up my soul. O my God, in You I trust, Do not let me be ashamed; Do not let my enemies exult over me. (v 1,2) Verses 1 and 2 show David freely giving himself to God, and then asking for something. Does he say his motive for asking? No. Does he give an explanation for why he needs God to do this? Let's read on. Indeed, none of those who wait for You will be ashamed; Those who deal treacherously without cause will be ashamed. Make me know Your ways, O Lord. Teach me Your paths. (v 3,4) Here, David qualifies the Truth of what he just prayed. That,"those who "wait" (to remain inactive or in a state of repose, as until something expected happens, in a state of readiness, faithfulness, derived from the Old High Germanic for "wake") on the Lord, will NOT be ashamed..." And those who deal "treacherously" (characterized by faithlessness or readiness to betray trust; traitorous, deceptive, untrustworthy, or unreliable) WILL be ashamed. THEN, David asks God for more! "Make known Your Ways, O Lord, and teach me Your paths!" Here, we can safely assume David does NOT know the Lord's ways or paths. Let's continue. Lead me in Your truth and teach me, For You are the God of my salvation; For You I wait all the day. Remember, O Lord , Your compassion and Your loving kindnesses, For they have ever lasted from of old. Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions; According to Your loving kindness remember me, For Your goodness' sake, O Lord . Good and upright is the Lord ; Therefore He instructs sinners in the way. He leads the humble in justice, And He teaches the humble His way. (v 5-9) David keeps asking for more! Here, he's hungry for God to give him help. This could be called Intercession. Ever the orator of his Heart, David continues to qualify Truth that he knows of God, and David still chooses to do what he said he would at the beginning; Wait. But hold on. David switches up! He then calls God to remember His own Goodness. David asks God to think about God!!! Saying,"Remember, Your compassion and Your loving kindness...", and then uses that as leverage in his prayer for God to answer,"do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to YOUR loving kindness, remember me." Then to round it off, David once again proclaims Truth. "Good and upright is the Lord ; Therefore He instructs sinners in the way. He leads the humble in justice, And He teaches the humble His way." These are just the first 9 verses. I encourage you to read the rest of the chapter. But what have we seen?! I saw David, a man after God's Heart and Love, broken, yet trusting that God desired to answer him. So David, approaching God boldly, states his request. But, revering God, and humbling himself, David responds to his own boldness with humility and appeals to the Truth of God. David asked, but he NEVER demanded. He respects God's Will to answer him in a way he may not be accustomed to. Hence,"...make me known to Your ways...teach me Your paths...lead me in Your Truth and teach me..." David assumed NOTHING with God, rather, He stated his desire, and said,"You, O Lord, who are able to do things greater than my understanding, hear my request, but do what YOU desire to do..." Is this not how Jesus prayed? In the garden,"...Father, if this cup should pass...but NOT My Will, but Yours be done..." The point of this is to call us to prayer in a concerted effort to request boldly our desires and at the same time, humble ourselves and receive God's Answer, timely and completely. This is the essence of Intercession. How does this work for me? It's taught me to view God as a Father, who loves His children, and at the same exact moment, instructs them in ways beyond their comprehension, in order to grow their understanding of Him, that they may grow in deeper relationship with Him, and also that they may find even more of their identity in the journey as God reveals Himself. There's no getting to the end of God, because there's no place from which to begin with Him. We start and end, but He always was, always is, and always will be. Constant, steady, ever unchanging. St. Anselm said of God, He is,"That, than which, the Greater, cannot be thought." He later stated, that even that maxim pales in comparison to Who God really is. It barely begins to scrape the surface. Let us proceed onward toward effective Prayer. State our requests, humble ourselves under His Glory, and ask Him to do His Will, regardless of how it makes us feel, because ultimately, His Will is only for our Greatest Good. Let this bless You today. Negant esse eum illuminatum in pace et requiescat.
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