I might say, thank you God that I am swimming in the waters of your will that I am an athletic person; I am an artistic person and so on. This is just a metaphor and there would be others, but the idea is to link God's will some imagery that might be telling the truth. This imagery is useful to me as a swimmer. I do believe that God's will is more than just a static concept that we find out about but it is also something that we find ourselves in, whether we like it or not. We are immersed in God's will in some ways and that is the way it really is. Just relying on decent air in the atmosphere is a current that we have to follow. We are swimming in the waters of Gods will in many ways. God's will is also a way of being, a state. Just for example the idea of prosperity. This concept is not just a matter of having a lot of money on hand, and calling it prosperity but something that involves a state of motion, something that would really be an immersion in prosperity if it truly was prosperity. Try and think of some ways of thinking about God's will that better describes what it is or might be so you can come to a more enlightened understanding of how it might operate in your life so that you can better follow its currents.
There is the issue of finding out God's will but also there is the issue of developing personal confidence in God's will. One thing my be to first isolate on some of the traits, qualities or things God has given us and only then look at the applicability of these gifts and how they might resonate in our lives. For example the attractive girl gets rejected at the high school dance. She could say her prayers later that night and say, God thank you that I am attractive, irrespective of me getting rejected at the dance. This way she can hone in on what is apparently God's will, and not so much link it with a given circumstance but rather more the intrinsic gift God gave her of attractiveness that is in fact God's apparent will for her. Then from there she can begin to sort out what this gift might mean and how she can handle it. Some intelligent person get's fired from a job for making a bad call. They could say, God, irregardless of me getting fired, thank you that it is your will that I have the gift of intelligence. Then this person can be more confident that it is God's will that they are working with a good amount of intelligence, and despite the negative feedback of getting fired for a bad call on business strategies, this intelligence, which is God's apparent will, can have much more broad and far reaching implications than this one isolated event.
People might not believe that God is watching them so closely for another wanted blessing or help. Maybe in some areas I don’t quite believe that God is watching over me. As natural doubting Thomas’s, we are trying to trying to grab at some ideas as to what God is trying to do with us. I might feel like I am grabbing at straws with any number of things, including the prayer of thanksgiving. How many people believe God loves them, or even likes them?
Psalm 5 verse number 3 says" Oh Lord in the morning you hear my voice in the morning I plead my case for you, and watch." If pleading was the wrong thing to do, then I wouldn't be bothered watching for what it is going to do. Pleading is not just a statement, but going a little further in prayer. i don't think we want to be overly humble in this type of prayer, although we always need to have a degree of humility in God's presence and about prayer, pleading would mean going a bit further, and these could involve going a bit more glossy in what we are saying to God. For example, I might say to God, this is and was awesome, it's like seeing you part Red Sea just for me, now can I cross it? Here we are telling God that something we can already identify as just awesome and we are asking for help to follow it. In our pleadings, we more want to talk about how great God is and how great we can be for Him with his help.
Another example in this might be a guy who spots and talks to what might be the love of his life. He pleads with God, let me have this beautiful blond girl as my companion. His motives might rather mixed on this, and then he says, I'll bring her to prayer meetings and we'll be a team for you if I she can be the companion. He might then analyze the prayer, think it over and realize that he has often gone to prayer meetings alone without the benefit of a helping companion and more than likely it could be true that he would do as he says. Or he thinks over the prayer and realizes he has only gone to a handful of prayer meetings in the last few years, and maybe his pleadings aren't as valid and then he can just amend his prayer after this review. But either way, the prayer is taking things a bit further, stretching things out and pleading a case, and then searching to go over the prayer for possible amending afterwards. Without extending the prayer initially, he might not have discovered what might have been true, that God might indeed be also interested in this situation as a forming prayer team or in even having discovered that he had this additional positive aspect to bring forward into the proposed situation. Pleading involves bringing some expanded thinking into the situation, in this case into the prayer in the morning.
Look at a court case itself on TV for example. A lot of what happens in the courtroom involves speculation and often calls upon being imaginative as to what had or could happen. Someone might make a statement to the judge or go a bit further and be giving the chance to plead his or her case to the judge.
In the prayer of intercession, we don't know sometimes what people are going through unless they identify themselves as such. For example the lonely, how would you know someone is lonely unless they identified themselves as lonely, or even the poor could be driving around in the best car in the neighborhood and thereby escape the identification of being poor. So I can ask God to help the lonely or poor, not knowing who they always are, in realizing that unless this group comes forward and identifies itself as such, I really just often don't know who they are.
Prayer itself is seen as contextual to the relationship with God. We see in James Chapter 4 that Elijah is referred to as a righteous man, who when praying for specific weather patterns, gets answers that are rather direct. When he asked for rain it rains, when he asks that it stops, it stops. The context is that he was a righteous man within the prayer relationship. I'm sure that these are not the only prayers that Elijah said and got direct answers too, these are just given as examples of some of his prayers, there were probably many and he must have prayed about many things, the weather being just one example. There was probably so much more, just as there can be so much more for you as you continue to prayer upon many things. His prayers might even be affecting what is happening today, in that people can pray for the far future. And this is also an example for us to be a little more direct in our prayers, rain is a very specific type of weather and Elijah was quite direct in asking for it.
Maybe I won the lottery and God must like me then, but I slipped and sprained my ankle, so God doesn’t like me after all.
There might be any number of prayers I have or requests for God. In prayer, we believe we are called to intercessory prayer, which would necessitate any number of prayer requests. There could be an innumerable number of things I could pray for, and number of people, of issues, of concerns worldwide could be broached as part of the call to intercessory prayer.
Yet sometimes within a personal request in applying the idea of intercessory prayer, I might be persistently praying for one thing, thinking , God, if you only give me this, I’ll stop begging you, and everything will be all right. After all, I don’t want to be selfish, and ask for too much. There are several dynamics to this problem. One is, that is I get so stuck on a single prayer request, something I have to have, I might both neglect praying for others in manifold fashion, and forget to pray also for any number of personal concerns, all of which might come more into the forefront if I can get past this problem. I feel like I am using up, a limited number of prayer answers that I could possibly get, and I am trying to squeeze the last answer or two out of God that I can get, then I’ll leave Him alone. Also, there might be just a plain lack of honesty with a more single minded approach to prayer. Someone might say to God, if you would just head my way this once and heal my aching back, I’ll leave you alone and I’ll just pray for others. Actually, you could get the healing and hurt your back again. As it turns out, I really wanted a condo on the beach, a light working schedule with a lot of money, and a trip to Australia in the near future. And I end up withholding those requests because I have this one thing out there that I so need to have answered. So much else does in all honesty does relate to my prayer request. Why not be honest at the beginning and bring in all the related matters to the initial prayer request. In intercessory prayer, if I am praying for my Uncle Charlie to be healed of this, why not additionally pray for everyone in the world who needs also needs healing of this as a related request?
I can think of all of this as a grid. The grid can be broken down into two parts, intercessory prayer and prayer for myself, and also where that might overlap. I might be praying for Fred, but I also want Fred to get me in on this one great business deal so that if he is successful, I’ll will get a share. I am praying for the safety of the city, but I also live in or near the city, so I have a personal interest in it being safe. I am praying for the stock market to go through the roof, but I also have several stocks in my portfolio, so the intercessory prayer qualifies in some ways as a personal prayer request as well in some cases.
Author Resource:-
I am currently writing in varied areas including on the Christian faith.
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