Mike Paschall . com

When is the last time you listened to yourself pray?  Sometime, you ought to hit the reverse switch on that little recorder in your mind and roll the tapes back to listen all over again as to how you pray.  You might be surprised with what you learn.  As confident as we outwardly appear in our relationship with our Heavenly Father, I wonder if we are truly that settled inwardly.  How we pray could give us a few indications.

For the greater part of my spiritual walk, I felt that the clearer I articulated my passionate petition, the better chance I had to get what I was asking for.  God was really smart and insightful, so you had to bring your A-game if you were going to get anywhere with Him.  HE was always way out front, so a guy had to work every angle to get things going in “my” direction.  If it took a little arm twisting, God was up for the match.  If it required tears, pacing, panting… I had some of that if needed.  If He wanted loud… dude, I could shout with the best of them.  Even my humble request to hear more from God, was attached to a downshifting “doing” gear that worked in perfect unison with my steering mechanism.  (Hmmmmm… maybe I’m better at multitasking than I’ve given myself credit.)  More times than not, I was going to do SOMETHING with what I heard.  I’ve lived in various seasons of intense intercession, so I’ve said just about everything that there is to say in just about every way imaginable.  I’m not convinced God has been all that impressed with the performance.

Probably what was missing was the main thing all along;  Me, desperately needing to readjust my perspective.  I was always pretty sure of what I wanted, while only slightly aware of what I really needed.  It could be that what we need to hear from God has more to do with us than the things we’re actually praying for.  “Lord, will you move this mountain?”  “Yes, but do you realize the mountain that needs to move is not the thing you’re focused on?”  “Wait, are you talking about me?”  Silence.  The Spirit’s sense of timing is chilling perfection.

Sitting with the Lord long enough to get His perspective is risky business.  You just know He is going to futz with you.  But, we probably need to get good with it.  I do a lot of one on one discipleship and counseling.  If I stop talking and the other person stops talking and I just continue to look at that person without saying anything, it usually only takes about 5 seconds before they’ll explode wanting to know what I’m thinking.  People get really nervous if they think you’re reading their mail.  Maybe they should, but if that is true with a man, how much more squirmy are we once the quiet lands in our time with the Lord?  We’d rather show up with our hands full of our trinkets.  Raw exposure leaves us so naked.

Obviously our issue isn’t in the asking department.  We can do some asking.  Our disconnect might be more along the lines of the receiving part.  To get ourselves into position to receive properly is going to require us to readjust our perspective.  We don’t have to cut deals with Him.  He’s a lover and a giver.  We don’t have to treat God like he’s stingy.  It might also need to dawn on us that God doesn’t require us to inform Him of what is going on down here.  He already has our perspective.  We need His.

There is abounding goodness that we can’t see or receive while we stomp in front of Him with all our little bag of worries.  A good readjustment now aligns our heart to the possibility that there might be another way to approach what has our focus and what He has already seen.  Now we can know just how capable He really is.  Seeing from His perspective invites rest and trust at a completely different level.  It’s a good and very needed adjustment.

-MDP-