By Katie Logsdon

Every morning there are a few things I always pray for: my family’s safety, friends’ prayer requests, my own daily obedience, and friends who have lost faith, to name a few.

“Lord, please, just keep my family safe. Help Beth with her communications test and just let her perform to the best of her God-given ability. Let me follow You today, God. And for Laura, if you could just bring her back to You, Lord.”

This is a pretty typical prayer for me, but notice one word I use multiple times – just. What do I mean by just? I mean simply, only, no more than.

Also read,“How to pray authentically”

Although subtle and commonplace, that word, in combination with the content of my prayers, reveals the weakness of my faith. While I know the Lord loves hearing me confide in Him about those things and doesn’t want me to stop, He probably also yearns for my prayers to better reflect the great vastness and power He has shown to me through His Word.

The Lord gave Moses the eloquence to lead the Israelites, Esther the cunningness to save the Jews, David the strength to survive the wilderness, and Jesus the power to redeem all of mankind.

How many times have I sang at the top of my lungs, “Savior, He can move the mountains!” with my hands raised high?

Clearly, a wide gap spans between what I know about God and how I pray.

Also read,“Prayer is (Not) Scary”

I think part of me wants to maintain a rational and realistic mind – for example, why pray for an end to world hunger when I know hundreds of millions of people will still go to bed with an empty stomach tonight?

In my own life, I go through periods of not praying for freedom from certain sin addictions because I can’t imagine in my own human mind a reality where I’m not struggling with sexual sin, coveting money, or yearning for admiration from anyone except my Heavenly Father.

I forget that our God transforms.

I forget the ways He has worked in my life to break sin once so cemented into me that I considered it part of my personality before realizing it held me back in my relationship with Christ. He took away my obsession with achieving perfect grades and overcame my fear of sharing the gospel with others. I must heed to Joshua’s wisdom when he set up stones to commemorate the Lord’s faithfulness in parting the Red Sea and remember the numerous ways God has shown me His power in my own life.

I want to pray as boldly as Joshua when he prayed, “Sun, stand still over Gibeon, and you, moon, over the Valley of Aijalon” (Joshua 10:12). Joshua did not rely on his finite human mind to win the battle against the Amorites, but rather he trusted that God, who made the sun, could also command it to stand still.

 

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