Have you ever made a purchase only to be disappointed?<\/p>\n
I am always trying to warn my kids, that what they see on TV commercials is almost never what they will have when they get it home.<\/p>\n
I sure wish I\u2019d listened to my own advice.<\/p>\n
I have an iPhone and iPad, so, I\u2019m constantly looking through the App Store trying to find the latest and greatest stuff to make my life \u201ceasier.\u201d<\/p>\n
You read the reviews, ask a few people who might know about such things, then lay down the cash and make the purchase.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been trying to find a way to make my iPad more interactive with our weekend services, and I found this software that sounded like it might do what I needed it to do, possibly, maybe, sort of.<\/p>\n
But, when I bought it, it did everything it said it would do, just not what I wanted it to do. So, I tried to manipulate my computer, or projectors and messed with every setting I could find.<\/p>\n
Within 24 hours, I had requested a refund for the software purchase and was rebuilding my entire laptop because what I tried to do had destroyed it… I am an idiot.<\/p>\n
Sometimes we get such grandiose ideas and think so much of our own plans that we miss basic details.<\/p>\n
Ever been there? The writings on the wall, or least in the instruction manual, but we just ignore it and try and make the impossible happen.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s really a question of purpose. What was the software made for? What was the tool designed to do? What was its intended purpose?<\/p>\n
For the person who prays, I think this is a most important question. What is the purpose of prayer?<\/p>\n
If you ask yourself the question does prayer work, you have to ask yourself what the purpose of prayer is. Because if you don\u2019t know what its intended purpose is, how can you know if it works?<\/p>\n
For most of us, we think that the purpose of prayer is for God to do what we want Him to do. You know, prayers filled with those kinds of requests that we humans offer up:<\/p>\n
Yes, we ask favors of God a regular basis. Some are those materialistic requests, while others are far more spiritual. We can ask for a sense of peace, a healing, for wisdom and guidance, or any old miracle.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d love to tell you that any time we make a heartfelt, repentant and sincere request, the God of the universe always delivers.<\/p>\n
The trouble is, He doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Plans fall through, cancer remains, spouses walk out, and people die.<\/p>\n
So, if the purpose of prayer is that God answers our requests, I have bad news… prayer doesn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n
Now, don\u2019t get in a tizzy. God moves, God heals, God is still doing miracles today. But, the purpose of prayer is not to make God do what we want Him to do.<\/p>\n
God does come to our aid, He miraculously shows up when we call on His name, and from biblical days forward we are called the people of prayer so that we can testify how God interacts and intervenes in the lives of men.<\/p>\n
But, if we are completely honest, there are far too many prayer requests that go completely unfulfilled to even begin to make a case that the number one purpose of prayer is to get requests fulfilled.<\/p>\n
So, the question remains, what is the purpose of prayer?<\/p>\n
I believe the Scriptures clear, God is in the business of changing lives, and our prayer is to be a conversation with Him. That conversation is not really meant for us to influence or manipulate God, but for Him to change us.<\/p>\n
The purpose of prayer is that we would relate to God in a way that we see Him, know Him and are changed by Him to become more like He is, rather than making Him like us.<\/p>\n
Ezekiel<\/strong> 36:25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/em><\/p>\n
That\u2019s why we often make requests that appear to go unanswered. It\u2019s not that God doesn\u2019t hear us, or we didn\u2019t have enough faith when we asked. Often times we were just asking for the wrong thing, or at the wrong time, and God had a better\/different answer.<\/p>\n
The reason He often doesn\u2019t give us what we ask for, is that He is more interested in changing us into who we are supposed to become than giving us what we think we need.<\/p>\n
This is extremely difficult when we\u2019re asking for things, often for others, when we can see no possible reason God wouldn\u2019t do this thing:<\/p>\n
\n
- the restoration of the marriage<\/li>\n
- the healing a child<\/li>\n
- the salvation of a friend<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
It is in these areas that we find great confusion. Why in the world would God not answer this request?<\/p>\n
If the purpose of prayer is not to answer requests, but to move us into deeper relationship with God. To make us more like Him, to make us more His…<\/p>\n
Then, in these most confusing moments of \u2018unanswered\u2019 prayer, the purpose of prayer becomes most clear… we learn to trust Him, accept His will, and follow His way… no matter what.<\/p>\n
We can\u2019t be so childish to believe that God teaches us to pray so that He can be our great shopping center in the sky. And, we can be so arrogant to believe that we could always understand and know the mind of the God of the universe in every situation.<\/p>\n
Isaiah<\/strong> 55:8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
\nneither are your ways my ways,”
\ndeclares the LORD.<\/em><\/p>\n9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
\nso are my ways higher than your ways
\nand my thoughts than your thoughts.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\nSo, we pray. We trust. We grow. We live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Have you ever made a purchase only to be disappointed?<\/p>\n
I am always trying to warn my kids, that what they see on TV commercials is almost never what they will have when they get it home.<\/p>\n
I sure wish I\u2019d listened to my own advice.<\/p>\n
I have an iPhone and iPad, so, I\u2019m constantly looking through the App Store trying to find the latest and greatest stuff to make my life \u201ceasier.\u201d<\/p>\n
You read the reviews, ask a few people who might know about such things, then lay down the cash and make the purchase.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been trying to find a way to make my iPad more interactive with our weekend services, and I found this software that sounded like it might do what I needed it to do, possibly, maybe, sort of.<\/p>\n
But, when I bought it, it did everything it said it would do, just not what I wanted it to do. So, I tried to manipulate my computer, or projectors and messed with every setting I could find.<\/p>\n
Within 24 hours, I had requested a refund for the software purchase and was rebuilding my entire laptop because what I tried to do had destroyed it… I am an idiot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[15,324,323,234,217,482],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=998"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1001,"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998\/revisions\/1001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}