The night was over and the sun rose as it did every day. It was same as the days on earth before. The routines were the same but yesterday had gone and a new day had come. Nobody knew what was in store. As usual it was expected to be another day filled with everyday routines. But what was unexpected was that the Lord responded to the cry of the heart on that day.
The Bible says in Malachi that you bring your tithes and offerings into the storehouse of the Lord and I will bless you in such a way that you will not have enough room to receive it. But I wanted to see it done in its fullest measure which I had not seen till then. Finance was not the issue. I was a student and the pressures of a job and life in general had not yet started. There came a sudden inspiration in my heart that I should give to God a tithe of my time.
The time that I spent with the Lord increased. While in prayer, the flesh usually cries ‘Give me’. But for me, the desire to hear from God was intense and it had been there for a long time. Many hours and days passed by and it seemed that the Lord isn’t responding. It resulted into disappointment. I realized it takes faith to answer the unanswered and perseverance to continue the quest.
I went back to the lessons Jesus taught, when his disciples asked him to teach them how to pray?
“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come Thy will be done on earth as it is heaven.”
Communicating with God through prayer is not just about telling want you want. It is also hearing what God wants to say and do – the revelation of the will of God.
God already knows what we need before we ask him. The flesh cries ‘Give me’. But when Jesus taught how to pray he said that the will of God should happen on earth as it is in heaven. “Thy kingdom come Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. What’s in heaven? The perfection of his will.
Jesus prayed at the garden of Gethsemane, “Lord not as I will but as you will.” The true prayer says ‘Lord let your will be done in my life’.
The greatest prayer is not ‘Give me. Rather, it is ‘Let your will be done and not mine’. It is when we get trained to understand the truth, comprehend his ways, follow his commands, that he starts speaking. He doesn’t respond to what you assume the truth is. Rather he responds to what the truth really is. He is not bothered about our selfish desires. He is bothered about the eternal reality.
How can God respond to a heart filled with selfish desires, filthy thoughts, love for the world, love of money? Instead he responds to a vessel ready to be broken, ready to submit and ready to accept.
Mary, the mother of Jesus, lived in times when the Lord was not speaking to his people any more. So great was the gap and so wide the distance that it took God 400 years to build the broken relationship, to break his silence and start speaking again to his people. And at such a time Mary spoke words of faith. “Lord, thy maid-servant.” She was successful in communicating with God through prayer her willingness to accept what He really wanted her to do and the Messiah was born.
As John Osteen said in his book ‘You can change your destiny’. If you want what people in the Bible received from Christ, you must do what the people in the Bible did for Christ.
we must constsntly keep in prayer with JESUS and let our pititions know and to obey JESUS and His word!!!