My father often said, “Prayer is the Biggest Power we’ve got.”
“But,” he added, “You must pray with an open mind.”
Looking back, I can see many places where I thought I was praying with an open mind, but I was not.
It is as if I had a stack of cards with various possible answers to my prayers written on each one of them. But those I felt were completely undesirable, I took off the table before I prayed.
Then when I prayed for an answer and I felt God did not select a card from what I had laid out, I wondered why He was not in the game.
I said, “I prayed about it, but I am just not hearing from God.”
Jesus demonstrated for us the pull of our natural feelings versus God’s Will.
In the Garden, He became sorrowful and troubled. He said to His Disciples, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”
Matthew 26:38
Jesus prayed, “Father, if You are willing, take this cup from Me; yet not My Will, but Yours be done.”
Matthew 26:39
He acknowledged He would like to take that card off the table. Yet He also sought The Father’s Will.
When we reach the point of agreeing to put all cards on the table … even the ones that are completely not our will … then we move into that mysterious place where we relinquish our will to His.
We completely trust God does have a good plan for us, even when it looks questionable to our human minds.
Jesus entered that place.
He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, mayYour Will be done.”
Matthew 26:42
I am not there yet. I have some cards I don’t want to put on the table. But I hear God reminding me to trust Him with all my heart and lean not on my own understanding.
He has promised that when I submit to Him in all my ways, He will make my paths straight.
Proverbs 3:5-6
“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!”
Jeremiah 29:11
