How to pray when we already know the answer
Your heart, gut, spirit, whatever typically knows what is right
I talked about forgiveness yesterday and asking my daughter to forgive me.
But…I knew she was going to forgive me.
It was a matter of when, not if.
And you see the trope in movies and tv shows…
…I’ll never forgive you…twenty years later…oh, come here ya big lug!
And I’m reminded that we come into prayer knowing we are forgiven for our sins. But…do we ever have times where we pray about something already knowing the outcome or result of the prayer??
I’d say we do, even if we don’t want to admit it.
It shows up in the form of praying for something we really, really want…but isn’t possible or practical for us at the time.
It pops up by asking God to magically make all of our worries go away…when we know that doesn’t make sense and wouldn’t actually help us in the long run.
We know the answers to these prayers before we start praying…don’t we?
And yet, God actually encourages us to ask anyway! God wants us to bring our hopes and desires into our prayers!
Even if we know it doesn’t make sense, God wants us to tell God that we want it. Because God cares about what we want and wants to talk and engage with us about it.
So, I say go for it.
Pray away.
And if that is what it takes to get you before God in prayer, then so be it.
Just be prepared to listen instead of doing all the talking…
My prayer for today
Our Father, thank you so much that you encourage us to pray for the unreasonable, unattainable, and unexpected. Spirit, help us move from seeking and asking to quiet listening every time we pray. Amen.
Remember
I don’t see any evidence in scripture that says that there is ever anything God doesn’t want us to pray about…so go ahead and pray. You have nothing to lose!