Being a single girl myself, I didn't have much of a problem discussing struggles with guys when one of my senior high girls came to me on Wednesday. Our society puts so much emphasis on romantic relationships even at a young age. It's difficult to see all of your friends have a date to a dance, but you are still without. Many people see this as trivial, which it might be, but that is her reality. That is her struggle. This problem is affecting her and that makes it important.
We talked about how God delights in us. There might not be a boy in her life that gets butterflies when he sees her, but there's a God who knows her better than she knows herself and she makes Him get butterflies every time He sees her. We talked about one of my favorite verses: "Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised." Proverbs 31:30. Those other things that attract high school boys may not be found in my beloved youth (even though I think she's delightful and beautiful), but she is a young woman of faith who loves and fears the LORD in a huge way! That's way more valuable than all of those other traits.
I share with her how since God is our Father and He is the King of Kings, Jesus is the Prince of Peace, and we are brothers and sisters in Christ. Soo...we are princesses. :D This might not seem too appealing for men, but I don't think that a girl, whether a little girl or an elderly woman, could keep themselves from smiling when they are called "princess." God helped us stumble onto this verse after the princess discussion: "it is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in princes." Psalm 118:9 How perfect! God is good...
And ya know...I think someone sometime somewhere is going to get butterflies at the thought of me, but until then, I'm fine. God is faithful and teaching me to seek Him first and all things will be given to me.
Friday, March 7, 2008
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Yeah, prayer... wait....prayer?
So prayer has been something that has solidly been on my heart and mind in the last weeks.
I read this book called Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster. It was a good book but I wrestled with the chapter on prayer a lot. He makes some comments about how in the past he had only "marginal success" with prayer. I don't understand this at all. How can prayer be unsuccessful? We know that prayer is to change us and align our will with the Father's. How can such a prayer that is said from the heart be deemed "unsuccessful?"
He also talked about how the disciples prayed for people and didn't really ever ask "if Thy will be done," but prayed with confidence. How do we gain this confidence to pray with? I know that there are times when I don't see my prayers answered as I ask. How do I pray with confidence and still know that it might not happen?
At our pre-intern retreat, this was a topic of great discussion. Our professor enlightened us a bit and helped us along. He explained that prayer is also often about getting to know God better, in that we start seeing that He is going to answer our prayers, but that prayer might not be answered in the same way that we expect. We look for the results that we had in mind. He might do what we ask, but in a different way. So we get to know our Father better and learn how to see what He is doing amidst our prayers.
It's disheartening sometimes to think that prayer isn't changing God. It awful, I know, but it's true. I think, why should I pray if God is taking care of it anyway? God wants us to spend time with Him! God wants an opportunity to speak to us and open our hearts and ears to Him.
The struggle I have, however, lies in intercessory prayer. What's the purpose of this? How does it work? I mean, I love knowing that people are praying for me and I enjoy praying for others. In the Bible, intercessory prayer was used. It just seems like it doesn't add up to me, though, because I think about how prayer is supposed to be changing our hearts as we pray. So why pray for others? Are we praying for their hearts to be changed? They're not doing the praying though and God is going to be changing them regardless of our prayers. I don't know.
Prayer is just such a crazy concept for me to try to latch on to. I love it and at the same time, the more I get into prayer and learn from it, the more mindboggling and frustrating it can be because I don't understand how it works, how to "do it correctly" necessarily, and what the purpose is.
Those are my thoughts. I'm open to yours.
I read this book called Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster. It was a good book but I wrestled with the chapter on prayer a lot. He makes some comments about how in the past he had only "marginal success" with prayer. I don't understand this at all. How can prayer be unsuccessful? We know that prayer is to change us and align our will with the Father's. How can such a prayer that is said from the heart be deemed "unsuccessful?"
He also talked about how the disciples prayed for people and didn't really ever ask "if Thy will be done," but prayed with confidence. How do we gain this confidence to pray with? I know that there are times when I don't see my prayers answered as I ask. How do I pray with confidence and still know that it might not happen?
At our pre-intern retreat, this was a topic of great discussion. Our professor enlightened us a bit and helped us along. He explained that prayer is also often about getting to know God better, in that we start seeing that He is going to answer our prayers, but that prayer might not be answered in the same way that we expect. We look for the results that we had in mind. He might do what we ask, but in a different way. So we get to know our Father better and learn how to see what He is doing amidst our prayers.
It's disheartening sometimes to think that prayer isn't changing God. It awful, I know, but it's true. I think, why should I pray if God is taking care of it anyway? God wants us to spend time with Him! God wants an opportunity to speak to us and open our hearts and ears to Him.
The struggle I have, however, lies in intercessory prayer. What's the purpose of this? How does it work? I mean, I love knowing that people are praying for me and I enjoy praying for others. In the Bible, intercessory prayer was used. It just seems like it doesn't add up to me, though, because I think about how prayer is supposed to be changing our hearts as we pray. So why pray for others? Are we praying for their hearts to be changed? They're not doing the praying though and God is going to be changing them regardless of our prayers. I don't know.
Prayer is just such a crazy concept for me to try to latch on to. I love it and at the same time, the more I get into prayer and learn from it, the more mindboggling and frustrating it can be because I don't understand how it works, how to "do it correctly" necessarily, and what the purpose is.
Those are my thoughts. I'm open to yours.
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