A couple of days ago I was getting hungry and decided to have one of those microwavable lean cuisine meals. I got the box out of the freezer, walked right up to the microwave and punched in the amount of time it needed, pushed start and walked away. When I came back a few minutes later, the meal was still frozen! What had gone wrong? Well that was easy to figure out… I had never actually put the meal in the microwave. HA! Ok so that didn’t actually happen… but it was a very vivid analogy that God gave me. His still small voice was saying… you see the meal has to actually spend time IN the microwave in order to be changed. May sound simple… and silly… but I think we do this very thing with our prayer life. Let me explain…
So many times we come before God with our petitions, prayers, and grievances. We beg Him to move on our behalf, to change a situation, heal our broken hearts, or build our faith. The problem is once we have announced our requests we promptly walk away and go back to life. We forget to actually spend time with God… allowing Him to work within us and change us. Spending time with God is not equivalent to praying for something. Think about your prayer life and what you consider your “time with God”, does it revolve around you making requests? Dont get me wrong, we HAVE TO PRAY and REQUEST if we want to see God move on our behalf. Matthew 7:7 tells us to ask, seek, and knock. My point is that the “asking” should only be part of the time we spend with God. There should also be seeking, and knocking.
For me, the past 3 years have been a little crazy. Somewhere between being a new mom, a wife, and a working in full-time ministry I got caught up. I never stopped praying and asking God for help and I never stopped reading my Bible, although there were certainly days that I didn’t, but the real problem was that I would open up the Word, read my chapter, stop and pray for God to do something and move on. I was checking off the God box on my “to do” list.
Only recently have I found my way back to really seeking God, spending time praising Him, thanking Him, and giving Him time so that He can shape me. Have I suddenly become less busy?? NO WAY… I wish!! The truth is that I realized that I cannot be productive or have joy any other way. I NEED God to get me through the day, to help me be worth something to the people in my life. Otherwise I will just drain those around me and never be able to be the friend, mom, and wife that God has called me to be.
