"Yeah, I'll have a better job, please. Happy family on the side. An order of good health. Better make that five orders. Do you have any World Peace?"
"There's gonna be a wait on the World Peace."
"Hmm. Nevermind. Just the other stuff then. Thanks."
How's your prayer life? What is prayer? What's it for? Is it just a time when we ask God for the things we want or need, the Almighty sitting patiently at the window, pen and order pad in hand? Or is there more to it? I'll be honest: sometimes, my own prayer life can feel more like I'm sitting at a drive-thru, just telling God what I need, with an "Oh, thanks," thrown in for good measure.
Maybe, if we're feeling super-pious, we'll throw the word "Lord" into our wish list a few hundred times, just to make sure He knows we're talking to Him.
Is this you, too?
Don't be embarrassed. This is part of our very real humanness. This is part of what we slowly overcome as we turn our lives over, bit by bit, to the Lordship of Christ. As we get to know Him better, as we get to know ourselves better, we learn how to trust Him. We learn that trusting ourselves, going after our wants and perceived needs, is what got mankind into this whole mess in the first place.
We learn that His will -- and not our own -- is what we truly need in our lives. If you want to enrich your prayer life, take that earlier scenario -- that whole drive-thru thing -- and reverse the roles. Put yourself in the position of listener, and God in the role of the one with the orders.
Maybe that's why Jesus, in teaching us how to pray, has us begin by recognizing God's true place:
In this manner, therefore, pray:
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