“If ye abide in me, and my word abide in you, ye shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you.” John 15:7 KJV
Wow. I’m learning already! Yesterday I finally got this prayer experiment set-up and started. As I meditated on God’s love this morning I realized I need to make some adjustments, not to the experiment or to the prayer, but to my expectations. Lesson 1: Make adjustments to your prayer as needed.
God’s love frees. Because God is the same in all conditions and God is love, His love is the same in all conditions. This understanding allows us the freedom to choose our own conditions. If we love others we’ll extend that freedom to them. As I set up the prayer for my friend, my desires for her confined my expectations of what God could do. I realized that to enter further into His love, to truly love her, is to allow her to make choices I wouldn’t. And to really love God is to trust that He loves her in ways in can’t and has more ways to answer her needs and honor her choices than I can imagine.
So I relaxed my mind, opened up my ideas, expanded my expectations, and prayed again. While I’m using the same promise and asking for the same thing, my imagination of how it can happen is free. My heart is at peace, my worries are gone, my confidence in Christ is both grounded and soaring, my hope for her is stronger and bigger than ever. Whether or not God does anything more for her, whether or not she responds to what He does in ways I’ll ever see, this prayer has already blessed me. Lesson 2: Praying in Christ’s love blesses the pray-er more and before it blesses the pray-ee.
Father, thank You for Your abundant love, the privilege of prayer, and for people to pray for. Thank you for sending Christ to show us how to love You, ourselves, and others, and how to pray. Thank you for these lessons in prayer. Help me maintain this experiment. Bless my readers as they read, pray, and grow in love and power. Amen.
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