Journal Entry ~ 12/09/17

7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.8 By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. - John 15:7-8

If we abide in Him, and we allow His words abide in us, we can be confident that anything we ask for will be done. When we are abiding in Him, we are being obedient to His Word, and when He is abiding in us, His Word is stored in our hearts. We are in tune with Him, our thoughts are turned toward Him, we feel His presence. When He abides in us and we abide in Him, we can ask whatever we wish and it will be done. God is not our genie in a bottle, but we can ask for whatever we wish because our wills have become aligned. What we want becomes what He wants when we submit our lives to Him. 

Sometimes prayer changes our situation, but more often, prayer changes our hearts as we start to pray more in line with what God wants than what we want. God uses prayer to fabricate His will in our lives because prayer puts us in a place where He can work on us.  When we pray according to our own will - when we go to Him with a list of requests for how we want Him to fix our lives, our hearts have a difficult time hearing Him through the noise. At these times, our hearts can only see one solution, and we anxiously present our requests to God as the way out of our trials.  When we are praying according to His will, we pray in submission to His will - that's why we pray “Your will be done." When our posture of heart is one of true submission, our hearts are soft, and God truly transform us into who He wants us to be. He can grow us into more loving, compassionate, gentle, serving people who prove to be His disciples when we our wills are aligned with His will. 

While it's true that God created each of us with specific desires, and placed in relationship with specific people because He wants us to pray for them...there are times He draws us to prayer about a specific person or situation because He needs to work on our own hearts. We may be praying about a difficult co-worker or family member, but God wants to reveal a blind spot to us or perhaps grow our compassion through our prayers. Perhaps we are praying for a specific situation to end favorably with our children, but God brings peace to our hearts as He assures is He is answering our bigger prayer of salvation for them. There is so much transforming power in the words “Your will be done” when you speak them from the heart.

Early in this diagnosis, I bought a t-short that reads “and if not, He is still good.”  I wear it all the time because the words have such power to remind me of His sovereignty in my trial. There are things I would like to see happen, there are specific requests I have brought to Him as I’ve moved through treatment, but I always end my prayers with submission to His will. And when I do, He brings me such peace to trust and accept His plan is best. He is softening my heart, He is transforming me, He is strengthening me. 

Press on ~ you are loved 💗