Prayer Worrier or Prayer Warrior

You might think that is a play on words, but it isn't! Many times we enter into our moments of talking with Jesus like intimidated little kids, head hung low, shuffling our feet, and dancing around the truth of what it is we really are there in need of at that very moment. We don't want to 'impose' on God, or maybe 'tick him off' with our constant asking, so we just dance around the subject, grazing on it from time to time. Prayer worriers - those who fret over how to say it, what to say, or in just being honest about what they are feeling - the end is always going to be the same...we won't feel like our time in prayer has accomplished very much! Why? We never really got to the meat of what needed to be shared - and God didn't get a chance to take care of whatever it was that was on our heart in the first place!

If you don’t know what you’re doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You’ll get his help, and won’t be condescended to when you ask for it. Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought. People who “worry their prayers” are like wind-whipped waves. Don’t think you’re going to get anything from the Master that way, adrift at sea, keeping all your options open. (James 1:5 MSG)

Prayer warriors are those who don't mince words with God - they know they don't have to pull their punches. They are as transparent as glass and they don't feel the need to temper their words to 'fit' some type of 'prayer etiquette'. I don't know about you, but when someone comes to me and really opens up their heart to me, I don't care if their sentences are grammatically correct, or even if they got all their thoughts into some 'ordered sequence of ideas'. I just appreciate that they opened up - because I know just how hard it was for them to be that transparent about their feelings and needs! God isn't any different - he knows it is hard for us to sometimes be honest with ourselves, much less him!

There are indeed times we don't have a clue what to ask God for - we just know how we 'feel' or that something isn't quite 'right' in a matter. We might have a notion as to what may be the issue at hand, but there are far more times we have very little information as to the 'true nature' of the matter. We just realize there are needs that go much deeper than we really know and we need his help to get at those needs and get those matters well in hand. This is why we just need to come honestly. There is no harm in admitting to him that we have 'no clue' what we really need, or what will help another individual past their moment of need. We just share what we can and then we allow him to do the rest. He listens to our honesty and then he meets it with his power and grace!

Sometimes we want to 'keep our options open', so we 'propose' to God all the possible scenarios to either the problem or the solution - hoping we might just hit the nail on the head in all this dancing around. The issue with this is that we rarely stop long enough to just listen to him. We get all tangled up in explaining ourselves, or how we see the situation, and we forget to just listen to how it is he actually knows the situation to be! The more we just lay things out there honestly, then stop to listen, instead of laying out all the options or possibilities, we might just find there is a solution we had never considered. The solution may lie more in our honesty than in the volume of words we use to express our need. Just sayin!

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