Mustard Seeds

Prayer....Believing God....Believing God to be The Sovereign King that He is...Believing in God...
Recently I posted a prayer request on FaceBook and I got lots of advice :) and a few people who agreed to pray. Do we really believe that the God in the Bible is so much more than our current worldviews, our tiny brains can comprehend, or the box that we put Him in is actually without borders?
Believe me when I say that I think that my prayer life could increase exponentiallly and still not reach its full potential! However, do we really believe HE IS the I AM? Do we really believe HE IS our Strongtower? Do we really believe HE IS our Provider, Jehovah Jireh? Do we really believe HE IS Healer, Jehova Raphi? Do we really believe HE IS THE SAME YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW? I could go on and on and on, HE has so many names, so many atributes, so many reasons why we should worship at His feet and His alone...
I say these things to say that I struggle with prayer requests...sometimes, I feel like it's just another way to gossip...
There's a verse in Romans that says that the Spirit will intercede when we know not what to pray, Jesus is our mediator, The Lord's Prayer is so very simple, Paul prays for souls and for minds to be like that of Christ Jesus...many of you know some of my testimony, and I am sure that I will be sharing much of it through this blog, I'm not sure how much, but it is my goal to be obedient. I so desire for God to use my circumstances to help someone else carry their cross. How much is it about prayer and how much is it about faith? I can remember many nights in our marriage where I simply sat on my knees and wept before the Lord, there were not many words! I knew that God was going to deliver my husband, I just did not know when or how!
Recently my friend sent me one of Francis Chan's videos and I want to share part of my response because I am having troubles rewording it to jive with the blog, so I'll just enclose the email:

"WOW! As usual Francis rocked it, I know I know, that was his point :) that we were supposed to notice Jesus more than Francis...and I did, I promise. love this message about more of Jesus and less rules. and I gotta say that the rules kept me from God and Jesus for many years...we need to preach Grace ever so much more than rules. When we preach rules I feel like it cheapens our faith, like we don't believe the Holy Spirit is able to accomplish His work...
It made me think about this whole prayer 'issue' I've been pondering for a while, not that I ever quit communicating with Abba, just that I started questioning a lot of things. I think for me the phrase How can I pray for you? started rating right up there with How are you? People use it to gossip and don't really care about the answer so much...Recently I answered with: 'That I would know Him more intimately. That I would be humble, teachable and correctable. that I would love my neighbor as myself'. We get so caught up in praying for jobs, and kids attitudes, and $$ to go on vacation or whatever your worldly need might be right now. But doesn't God want us to be more like Him, doesn't He want us to praise Him with His own Word. The most common things I pray over my kids (and friends) are: God let them know You ever more intimately and powerfully and spread Your love constantly, and to be content in You. Not that God doesn't care about the details, cuz He compares Himself to a dad and wanting to give good gifts. I just think that if I focus more on knowing Him and honoring Him more and being obedient then I feel like He's going to iron out all the details for me, since He also says that He laid my life out at Creation. Why would I want to pray for weeks that God give me that hot red sportscar when all along God planned to give me a silver Honda Odyssey so that I can carry around the foster kids that are just around the corner? Its still an enigma to me...I definitely have not arrived. But listening to Chan made me come back to this 'prayer' that I've been pondering for months...even with the renters that I want to find for my house, I have not been praying about it. God led us here on this journey, and God knows that $$ is tight and God knows that renting the house would be helpful, so I pray that we would be good stewards with what He's giving us and that we would honor Him with all our decisions. It may not be in His plan to rent the house. Who knows, He could've brot us here for only a short while and want us to return home and then renting the house would've been a dumb idea...like I said: still an enigma :)"
One of the things that I learned while being married to an addict was that the Holy Spirit can say more, say it better, and say it at the right time, than my mouth could every say. Now if I could just learn this with my kids :) Because, in my Spirit which communes regularly with the Holy Spirit, that dwells in this Temple, He already knows.
There is also the whole where 2 or more are gathered, there am I also...it is good for us to pray like-minded. I just think that it's not so much about a shopping list as it is about a relationship with God. One of the things that still stands out, 8 years later, of the mission trip I took after Bible School to Mexico was the praying! These people PRAYED!!! I mean praying in the Spirit, but they ALL prayed out loud at the same time. In America we all respectfully pray individually and listen to each persons prayer, making it more about the words that are said than the ONE whom they are said to. Do you know what?! God heard everyone of those prayers in that sanctuary, even though they were 'prayed on top of each other'...God is Omniscient, Omnipresent, why do we think we need to hear another persons prayers?
"It's all about You, Jesus, all about you!" "Jesus, be the center" just a few of the songs that replay themselves in my brain (believe me, you don't want to live up there)...do we really mean what we sing to this Holy God, Who is not only able, but willing to meet us wherever we are?
My favorite verse is the 2nd to last verse of a very amazing chapter in the book of Psalms, there isn't a verse in Chapter 46 that doesn't rock my world! But there is 1 that I meditate on regularly, and it is often misquoted, and I believe that when you misquote it that you miss the intensity and heart behind the verse...He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;    I will be exalted among the nations,    I will be exalted in the earth.” He's already got it all under control!