Have you thought about what you pray for most? Have you paid attention to the prayer requests lifted in your church? Thinking about what you pray is a recurring theme of my blogs, and something I believe is terribly important.
Most of our prayers in public ask God for healing or for God to get us out of some difficulty. I'm afraid many of our private prayers ask God for things, possibly some new toy that we want. But those were not the prayers lifted by the early church, or the great prayers of any age.
The church in Thessalonica endured great persecution from its beginning in Acts 17. In his first letter to them Paul wrote that in spite persecution they welcomed the message. But Paul did not ask God to relieve them or deliver them from persecution. At the end of the third chapter Paul prayed that the Lord would increase and overflow with love for one another and every one, and to make their hearts blameless in holiness before our God at the coming of our Lord.
I am reading The Hiding Place again for the first time in many years. I was pleased to see in my copy a preface by Elizabeth Sherrill. Elizabeth and her husband, John, co-wrote The Hiding Place with Corrie Ten Boom. In her comments Elizabeth listed some things she had learned from Corrie.
“Handling separation; Getting along with less; Security in the midst of insecurity; Forgiveness; How God uses weakness; Dealing with difficult people; Facing death; Loving your enemies; What to do when evil wins.”
These are similar character traits to those Paul prayed for the churches. My suggestion is that you examine your prayers and shift them from comfort to character. What great things is God waiting to produce in you this year?
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