Philippians 4:6-7
Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.
Scripture quotations from The Message. © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress, Colorado Springs, CO. All rights reserved.
Have you ever written out a message to someone and read over it before you sent it… only to discover that what you had written sounded silly or ridiculous? Maybe you expressed worry or concern over something, and once you saw it written down on paper, it all seemed trivial or less important. Often, when thoughts come into our head, it is helpful to write them down and let them settle before doing anything further. This could be akin to "shaping your worries into prayers".
If you have ever worked with cookie dough… the kind you roll out and cut into pretty shapes for baking…you know that at some point, you work and work with the dough until there is nothing left but scraps that are hard to shape and form into anything pretty. These last few pieces usually end up as a “blob cookie” – most often eaten by the baker (at least at my house!).
Writing out our prayers… listing our worries and “shaping them into prayer”… might actually be a pretty good idea. When we write things down, then step back and look at them, we can see where God is already on the job… and how He can handle certain aspects of whatever concerns us far better than we ever could hope to do. Just as with the cookie dough, we might even do a halfway decent job of working out the first few shapes… but God can take that last “blob” and mold it into something beautiful, as well.
So whether we actually write out our worries and petitions to God… or we simply voice them… let’s understand that He’s got this. God knows our concerns and is already working on them. He’s waiting for us to surrender them completely to Him, so that He can resolve them perfectly. This is a hard one for me… and maybe for you, also. I want to scoop up my worries and concerns and keep reshaping them. Surely if I just massage that “worry dough” enough, I can get it all to work out in perfectly formed “cookies”… right? What I need to learn – and maybe you do, too – is that God is the far superior “baker”… He can work everything out perfectly, and I need to step aside and let Him. AND… I need to trust Him more.
Today, I challenge you to write out a prayer to God and tell Him ALL of your worries and concerns. Then read it again and see where you are trying to “rework the dough” that God is already forming into the perfect “cookies” for your life. We are often our own worst enemy when it comes to having peace about all things. God has already promised to handle our worries and our cares and give us complete peace… isn’t it time for us to let Him?
©2013 Debbie Robus
Showing posts with label worrying prayer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label worrying prayer. Show all posts
Daily Devotional for February 11, 2013
James 1:5-8
If you don’t know what you’re doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You’ll get his help, and won’t be condescended to when you ask for it. Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought. People who “worry their prayers” are like wind-whipped waves. Don’t think you’re going to get anything from the Master that way, adrift at sea, keeping all your options open.
Scripture quotations from The Message. © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress, Colorado Springs, CO. All rights reserved.
In our publishing business, my husband and I handled a lot of “customer service” calls. One of the things I heard over and over was, “This is probably a dumb question, but…” My response was always, “There are no dumb questions.” I will grant you… some of the questions seemed pretty ridiculous, because the answers seemed obvious to us. But for the person asking, these were serious queries. The last thing we wanted to do was to make him/her feel inferior or foolish.
When I read this passage today, I thought about how we come to God with our questions and problems. I wonder if we truly realize that He has every answer! God knows exactly what we should do and how everything will play out…and there are no “dumb questions” when we are talking with Him. More importantly, we can trust that God will not only hear our prayers… He will answer them and guide our steps.
How do you know that what you are hearing is truly God’s answer? This is a huge question… one that we wrestle with every day. Some look for “signs”… others go with a “gut feeling”… and yes, some “worry their prayers” half to death – wringing their hands and wondering if they made the right choices. And sometimes, you have well-meaning – even wise and caring – advisors telling you that your “answers” are not the right ones. What do you do with all of this?
My experience has shown me that there will be times when things readily fall into place, and I feel that I heard correctly from God. Everything may not play out exactly as I anticipated… but in the end, I see God’s hand in the results. There will also be a few times when I miss the mark… when I think God has led me in one direction, and I learn that I was not quite on target. The GOOD NEWS is that even in these times, God doesn’t desert me. If I faithfully and genuinely trust Him for outcomes, He will work even when I have misinterpreted His message. There may be some bumps in the road… challenges and hurdles I didn’t anticipate – much less want… but God will show me how to correct my course and get back on track.
The KEY is to communicate with God about everything, to faithfully work to follow His will… and then to trust Him for the outcomes. The one thing we must not do is “worry our prayers” and second-guess them. If we have humbly and earnestly sought God’s will in prayer, we cannot play the “woulda-shoulda-coulda” game afterward.
This is not easy. But God never promised us easy. I heard Pastor Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life, say that he once asked a man how he was doing. The man replied, “I’m doing very well… under the circumstances.” Pastor Warren’s reply was, “What are you doing under them? Being under your circumstances is like being under a mattress… you’ll smother! Get on top of them!” God wants us to come to him with all of our questions, problems, and concerns… and to trust Him to show us how to sit on top of them. He wants us to trust Him for the right answers… and the outcomes.
My question to all of us today is this… “Where are we sitting? Are we under the “mattress” of our circumstances? Have we deemed our questions/situations to be too dumb for God to handle? Do we fully trust His ability to answer us? Do we trust our ability to hear from Him… and are we following through on His answers with confidence? Have we stopped “worrying our prayers” and started trusting God to guide us in all situations? Isn’t it time we did?
©2013 Debbie Robus
If you don’t know what you’re doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You’ll get his help, and won’t be condescended to when you ask for it. Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought. People who “worry their prayers” are like wind-whipped waves. Don’t think you’re going to get anything from the Master that way, adrift at sea, keeping all your options open.
Scripture quotations from The Message. © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress, Colorado Springs, CO. All rights reserved.
In our publishing business, my husband and I handled a lot of “customer service” calls. One of the things I heard over and over was, “This is probably a dumb question, but…” My response was always, “There are no dumb questions.” I will grant you… some of the questions seemed pretty ridiculous, because the answers seemed obvious to us. But for the person asking, these were serious queries. The last thing we wanted to do was to make him/her feel inferior or foolish.
When I read this passage today, I thought about how we come to God with our questions and problems. I wonder if we truly realize that He has every answer! God knows exactly what we should do and how everything will play out…and there are no “dumb questions” when we are talking with Him. More importantly, we can trust that God will not only hear our prayers… He will answer them and guide our steps.
How do you know that what you are hearing is truly God’s answer? This is a huge question… one that we wrestle with every day. Some look for “signs”… others go with a “gut feeling”… and yes, some “worry their prayers” half to death – wringing their hands and wondering if they made the right choices. And sometimes, you have well-meaning – even wise and caring – advisors telling you that your “answers” are not the right ones. What do you do with all of this?
My experience has shown me that there will be times when things readily fall into place, and I feel that I heard correctly from God. Everything may not play out exactly as I anticipated… but in the end, I see God’s hand in the results. There will also be a few times when I miss the mark… when I think God has led me in one direction, and I learn that I was not quite on target. The GOOD NEWS is that even in these times, God doesn’t desert me. If I faithfully and genuinely trust Him for outcomes, He will work even when I have misinterpreted His message. There may be some bumps in the road… challenges and hurdles I didn’t anticipate – much less want… but God will show me how to correct my course and get back on track.
The KEY is to communicate with God about everything, to faithfully work to follow His will… and then to trust Him for the outcomes. The one thing we must not do is “worry our prayers” and second-guess them. If we have humbly and earnestly sought God’s will in prayer, we cannot play the “woulda-shoulda-coulda” game afterward.
This is not easy. But God never promised us easy. I heard Pastor Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life, say that he once asked a man how he was doing. The man replied, “I’m doing very well… under the circumstances.” Pastor Warren’s reply was, “What are you doing under them? Being under your circumstances is like being under a mattress… you’ll smother! Get on top of them!” God wants us to come to him with all of our questions, problems, and concerns… and to trust Him to show us how to sit on top of them. He wants us to trust Him for the right answers… and the outcomes.
My question to all of us today is this… “Where are we sitting? Are we under the “mattress” of our circumstances? Have we deemed our questions/situations to be too dumb for God to handle? Do we fully trust His ability to answer us? Do we trust our ability to hear from Him… and are we following through on His answers with confidence? Have we stopped “worrying our prayers” and started trusting God to guide us in all situations? Isn’t it time we did?
©2013 Debbie Robus
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