Honesty in Prayer

It's so easy to say a quick prayer to God that is completely vague and broad and go about your merry way. A lot of us do this because it's convenient. Our days are so busy that we barely have time to pray anyway so we say a quick little prayer just before our day starts and we move on. I believe that God wants a little more from us than a quick prayer. He wants us to pour out our hearts to Him. There are several instances in the bible where we see God's people becoming vulnerable and truly honest with the Lord and I believe that's how God intended prayer with Him to be.

One example where we see God's people become honest before Him is Job's story. Job was a wealthy man, full of integrity, blameless and a man that feared God, as the bible says (Job 1). God deemed him as the finest man in all the earth (Job 1:8). Satan approached the Lord one day and proclaimed that if he took everything from Job, he would surely curse the Lord. The Lord disagreed with him and allowed Satan to test him. During this test, Job lost everything. His possessions, his family, he had nothing left. What we see throughout this text is Job crying out to God and pouring out all that is on his heart. But the last chapter of Job is what I want to focus on (Job 42). Where we see Job become vulnerable and repent to the Lord. I love this part of the text because we see Job do three things here:

1. Tell God who He is (Job 42:2): Sometimes in prayer we must remind ourselves who God is. We must remember how powerful He is and we have to speak Gods word back to Him to reassure us. I believe we experience God's perfect peace when we lean into all that He is.
   

2. Acknowledges that you were wrong (Job 42:3): When we go through things it's easy to react emotionally or in our flesh, but this is never the best way to respond to any situation. Later, once EVERYTHING has gone wrong, we have to go to Lord and ask for help to fix the situation we just messed up. Job knew how he responded to the tests that he was going through was wrong. How dare he question God's wisdom. It is not our job to try and understand God. It is our job to trust, regardless the situation, and realize that He has so much more wisdom than us. He knows what He's doing.
   

3. Repent (Job 42:6): Sometimes in prayer it's good to go to God and say: 'Lord, I messed up, forgive me.' I believe that God admires that, and He's pleased that you have come to Him in repentance. When we do that we are not only acknowledging that we were wrong but, in some ways, we are giving control back over to the Lord and saying: 'You've got it, I'll get out of the way now'. Immediately after Job did this, God blessed Him and restored everything he lost!

Over the past few weeks, I've had some really rough days where I've felt insecure, irritated, fearful and worrisome. Instead of praying about all that I was feeling and giving my situation to God, I just sat in it. That's the worst thing you can do is just sit in awful feelings that don't glorify God and allow them to eat at you. Instead of giving Christ your burdens you just dwell because you're comfortable doing that. You do it all the time, right? One day I got tired of doing that and I decided to sit at the Lord's feet. I told Him everything I was feeling in that moment, but I didn't stay there. I then told Him who He is and whom He's called me to be, but I didn't stay there. I finally repented and gave Him my situation and asked that it would work out for my good like His word says. I told Him that I was stepping aside and giving Him full control of my situation. Do you know, moments after that, he blessed me by fixing my situation! Ya'll it was so amazing to see God move so quickly in my situation and work it out just because I became honest before Him and surrendered my situation to Him. He can do that for you too. It may not always be immediately after but know that He has your situation now, the best person to have it, and He will bless you.

I encourage you to get honest before Christ. Stop thinking mediocre and broad prayers are enough. Get before the Lord and give Him everything that is on your heart. Cast your cares onto the Lord (1 Peter 5: 7), speak what a mighty, all powerful, healing, forgiving, wise, caring, way making God he is. Choose to trust Him and give your situation over to Him. It will make your days SO much better. Let's be intentional about taking the time out of our day to get real before Jesus and watch how He blesses us!