Pray with a sincere heart

Start story. Praying to God for His will, then trying to manipulate it is a bad idea. End story.

How do we know God's will for our lives? The first step is knowing God Himself. It is impossible to know God's will without first having entered into a relationship with Him. We do this through His son Jesus Christ. One of the most often quoted scriptures about God's will is from Jeremiah 29:11:

v 11 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Let's not stop at that verse, as we often do. I think we stop at verse 12 because it's easier than the next few verses. It just gives us a promise, but the next two verses give us some directions to follow. We all tend to like the sounds of a God who gives freely to all who ask. We all enjoy thinking of God as a Santa Clause figure who just grants us the desires of our hearts. Verses 12-14 tell us that we need to call out to God. This is one of the hardest things, especially for us Christians who are used to pretending to be perfect. See, if we call out to God, we admit that we need Him, and this right away puts a hole in perfect image we work so diligently to maintain. It's pride that often keeps us separated from God, because it is pride that whispers in our ear, "You don't need God. You're doing just fine." Truth is, we're not doing fine. Truth is, without acknowledging our need for Him, we can never come to the saving grace we find through repentance, and that is exactly how the devil would love to see us stay. Verse 12 tells us that if we call out to Him (not to the god we want, but the One True and Living God) He will answer and verse 13 assures us when we seek Him, we will find Him. Do we truly seek Him? Or do we stop once we discover that knowing God might involve more than we are willing to give?

I have to be honest. I haven't known God's perfect and pleasing will for my life because I was too busy maintaining the image of being the "perfect Christian." I have to peel another layer away and get a little more honest, I was a miserable failure at pretending. Some people are actually good at bouncing back and forth from being in the world during the week and putting on a believable act Sunday mornings. Me, I'm not too good at that. When I stopped being obedient to the Lord, my peace emptied out quickly. I believe that's the way it is for everybody. As C.S. Lewis put it, "God cannot give us peace and happiness apart from Himself because it is not there. There is no such thing." Some people are just better at dealing with not having the true peace found in Christ.

When my world started to unravel, I blamed God. That's because I had started to shape God into who I wanted Him to be. I wanted Him to be a God who let me do whatever I wanted and bailed me out of the troubles I created. I wanted Him to be a genie in a bottle that I could call on when I needed some wishes answered, and send Him back to the bottle when I was through. I realize now that my prayer life often resembled more closely that of somebody throwing pennies into a wishing well than that of somebody who has the assurance of John 14:14, "You may ask me for anything in my name and I will do it." If we're asking for it in His name, and He is going to give it to us in His name, than it must match His character. It is important that we learn God's character so that we can discern God's will from that of the world, the voice of the Holy Spirit from the static of life.

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In Matthew 11:28, Jesus says to all of us who are finally tired of wasting energy faking it, "Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." I am so thankful that I can finally stop wasting my time and energy maintaining a fake image. I'm so glad that God promises that He will make me more like Him if I just let Him. I just want to spend my life showering God with the praises that He so much deserves. I want my life to draw others to know Jesus Christ. I don't care about what I have to lose. After trying so long and hard to obtain things of this world, suddenly Mark 8:36 takes on new meaning. Having tried to gain the whole world, I'm glad that I can give it up. There is absolutely nothing on this earth that can replace the peace of knowing Jesus as a Savior.

What's your treasure?

Martin Luther said, "Whatever your heart clings to and confides in, that is really your God." This quote made me think deeply about what my heart clings to. I started to think about who and what I turn to in my moments of need. Of course, I'd love to say that I automatically thought, " I cling to nothing but God. I always seek Him first for my every need." If I had thought that, I would have had to correct myself quickly if I wanted to be honest with myself. As I have started to truly pursue God, He has shown me just how little I had been relying on Him.

It's pretty easy to have things sneak into your life and take over your heart. God wants all of us though. He is never satisfied with anything less. In Matthew 6:21 Jesus warns believers, "Where your treasure lies, there also your heart will be." God wants 100% of our devotion. Anything that we value above our relationship with God is an idol. Idols are sneaky little buggers. They wiggle into our hearts and minds and conquer us with stealth. And you know, the funniest thing about idols is that they often have a tendency to stem from what was once a blessing.

A relationship that was once a blessing becomes the focus of our heart and pushes God off His throne. A promotion at work forces us to work longer hours during the week and pick up Sunday shifts. We upgrade our home and vehicle and downgrade our tithes and offerings. We get accepted to graduate school and sacrifice studying the Bible to study for our MBA. We rush out of church service so that we can make it home in time to see the kickoff of the football game. It is easy to allow a gift from above to form an idol in our lives. None of those things are inherently evil, as we tend to think of idolatry. They aren't a statue to a pagan god, so we don't easily identify them as an idol until our mismanagement of God's gifts starts yielding consequences.

We also have a tendency to straight up try and create our own God. We still call him God, but we try and form Him to fit our needs. We want Him to be who we'd like to see Him be, instead to being who He really is. That minimizes Him from God to a god.I read a quote from the book Finding the Heart to Go On by Lynn Anderson that really opened my eyes to the human tendency to construct and worship our own version of God (an idol).

"Human beings are worshippers. We will give our devotion to something.Unfortunately, in our day we seem to want a God who is answerable to us. Sometimes we treat Him as if He were a giant bubble-gum machine: insert coin and collect goodies. We will not allow God to do things we do not understand. He must explain Himself to our satisfaction or we are not sure we want to believe in Him. After all, we do not want a God who might ask of us the difficult, unreasonable or painful. In short, we want God to be a good luck charm that we carry into tough times of life to give us what we want without any regard to what He wants."

I wonder how many little treasures I try and hold back from God. I think back to how often in my life I have been like Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-10), trying to withhold from God and hoping that He didn't take notice. I'm not talking about finances, though that has happened too, I'm talking about trying to fool God into believing that I have surrendered all of me, when I'm actually hiding bits and pieces that I don't want to give up.

Jesus taught us that we are to love God with all of our heart, soul, and minds (Luke 10:27). When I love God like that, I'll willingly submit to Him. I will surrender anything to Him, because I trust Him with all that is within me. Romans 12:1-2 instructs us that we need to be willing to sacrifice our bodies and minds for God-- that means physically doing things we're not comfortable doing and going places that we may not want to go. It also means yielding our minds. The last part of the verse tells us that after we've sacrificed ourselves, given up our own desires for His, that we then can know His good and perfect will for our lives. God wants all of us. And until we die to ourselves, we can never fully see His plan for our lives. That piece of our life that we don't want to give up, that treasure we've buried deep down in our heart, will blind us spiritually to who God really is. No matter how little or how large our idol, it will always interfere with God's perfect plan.

Honestly assess your life. Pray for the Holy Spirit to show you what idol you might be clinging to. If you pray that, be ready for God to answer. And if you're ready for God to answer, be ready for Him to step in and heal you, because where those idols have been residing in your heart, there will be a hole that He will have to fill.