Linda Evans Shepherd - When You Dont Know What to Pray: How to Talk to God about Anything

We must alter our lives in order to alter our hearts, for it is impossible to live one way and pray another.

William Law

G et ready for a season of prayer that will change your life. Lock your door. Take the phone off the hook. Hide in the closet. Even if you cant get away from the people and distractions that surround you, you can still be alone with God. All you have to do is clear a mental space in your head and heart.

One of my daughters therapists travels Boulder County in her van, which shes turned into a mobile speech and language classroom for kids. Pam says that every morning when she climbs inside, she clears off the passenger seat for Jesus. She prays, Lord, could you go with me today as I visit my students?

I love that!

Lets invite Jesus to go with us as we pray our way through this chapter.

Dear Jesus,

Could you go with me through this chapter and through this book? Could you open the eyes of my heart to show me everything you have for me? Help me to focus on you, your Word, and all you have to teach me.

Amen.

Yes! Youve just asked Jesus to read this chapter and this book with you and to you. This is cooler than a refreshing summer rain.

Gods Love for You

Before we get into the actual act of self-prayer, I would like to take this moment for a commercial break from my sponsor. The Lord of the universe has a special message for you. Okay, I know youve heard it before, but its time you believed it with your entire being.

The message is this: GOD LOVES YOU!

Yeah, yeah, you know that. But do you really get it all the way down to your toenails? Let me say it one more time: GOD LOVES YOU! Now, say it aloud: GOD LOVES ME!

Really! Truly!

Until this concept captures your heart, you will find it difficult to pray for yourself, because of all people, you alone know how undeserving of Gods love you are.

Its true that on occasion youve been known to sin, lie, cheat, gossip... well, I dont need to list all your faults. Im assuming you already know most of them as I know mine. However, as Ive discovered, knowing you arent perfect makes you question your worth. Based on what you know about you and what I know about me, neither of us deserves Gods love. Yet he loves us anyway.

Look at it this way: Gods love for us is supernatural. Despite our shortcomings, God cares about the details of our lives. My life. Your life. Really.

Heres yet another barrier to prayer; its hard to pray for yourself when you doubt God. You may wonder, How can there be a loving God when we see this broken world full of tragedy and suffering?

I call that the Divine Question, which of course has a divine answer. Let me tell you a story.

At a point before time, a terrible battle raged between God and our mortal enemy, Satan, in the heavenlies. Satan (Lucifer) led a revolt against God, and he and his minions were cast out of heaven, like a falling star.

Then one day, after time began, Lucifer tricked Adam and Eve out of their innocence in the Garden of Eden. There, Eve fell for his line about eating the forbidden fruit: You will be like God, knowing good and evil (Gen. 3:5, emphasis mine).

Well, yes, this was all true to a point. But when Eve bit into the fruit and swallowed Satans lie, this first sin opened her eyes so that she could see good and evil. She could see that her disobedience (along with Adams) had poisoned their very souls with evil. The fallout? Adam and Eve lost the intimacy they had shared with God because their sin separated them from Gods holiness. They were cast out of his beautiful garden to scratch out their living in the thorns of sin. But worst of all, there were no more walks and talks with God in the cool of the evening, as they were exiled from the lover of their souls. Was there no hope, no cure for this poison that separated them from God, their beloved?

You would think this great rift between God and humanity would cause God to give up on people altogether and wipe our species off the face of the earth. But despite this rift caused by sin, he continued to love the people he had created. He closely followed their trials and tribulations and heard them when they cried out to him.

Once, when his people, the Israelites, were in slavery in Egypt, God sent Moses to win their release from the pharaoh. After experiencing Gods wrath, Pharaoh finally set the people free, and Moses led them away from their captors. God even parted the Red Sea to aid their escape.