Prayer has been a major part of my life for the past several years. In fact, I have kept a prayer journal off and on for almost 15 years. I have periods in my life where I depend on it, I have periods of my life where I forget about it and neglect it. The past couple of years I have come to depend on my time spent in prayer more and more. As I think back on all of my old journals I can see the change within me and my relationship with God. When I first started writing in them, I was angry and questioning God at every turn. Most of my prayers were of blaming others and questioning my existence and wanting to know why I had been dealt the hand I was living. Later on I was going through periods of forgiveness and trying to get over my past and trying to be obedient so that I wasn't trapped in a life full of pain and anger and depression. I have at times gone through phases where I have felt so ensconced by God in my prayers that I couldn't help but pray and petition Him constantly. I have gone through phases where even in my prayers the distance between God and myself was painful.
Over the last 2 or 3 years my prayer life has grown substantially. Over the last year my prayers have changed. Over the last few months my prayers have evolved into something even more. Looking back, I have gone from being an anger filled, depressed person constantly questioning God and my existence, to learning to love God and accept how my life has gone. This process has taken years. But never have I experienced the power and seen the answers in prayer so much as when I started to ask God to change me, and to fill me with passion for Him. Every day as my passion for Him grows, my perspective on life changes. I started praying for other people. I started putting more and more of my trust in Him and then instead of asking Him to just change me, I started asking Him to teach me instead. And He has...but the biggest change of all, was when I reached the point in my prayers where I could say "I am here, what do you want me to do for You?". I am finding that when you reach that point in your prayer life, not only do you receive even greater answer to your petitions whatever they may be, but when you are willing to tell God that you will do what he wants you to do, He takes you places and puts desires in your heart that you had never had before. He puts plans in your mind that you would have never considered otherwise.
It IS a daring prayer. I have heard people speak about praying for what God wants them to do. I have heard people pray it before. But I had never prayed it myself until the last few months. Maybe the reason was I knew that if I were daring enough to pray such a prayer I had better be willing to back it up. Maybe I hadn't had enough trust in God before to think that He would know what He was doing. But what I am beginning to deeply understand in a way I have never understood before is that is where He wants us to be, that is what He means by dying to ourselves. When we die to ourselves we should be able to be where we can say "God what would You have me do?"
Unfortunately for me, despite growing up in church, spending years listening to preachers, speakers, teachers, reading books, reading my Bible, memorizing scripture, I never understood that until now, and now that I do, I feel as if I have missed out and wasted so much of my life. Now I find that I never want to be out of that will that comes from Him. I WANT to do what He wants me to because it is more freeing to be in His will than it is to live in my own emotions and desires.
I have such a long road to travel in this journey. I have so much to learn and even more to understand. I make many mistakes daily, and will make many more, but I pray that God will use me how He sees fit and that I will have the strength and courage to do what He asks of me from here on out, for I never want to leave His side again, and because he has saved me from so much misery I can only live my life doing what He wills. I see no other way.
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