A Most Effective Prayer

Even after all these years I can still hear them.…..all those big promotions for the great sermon series soon to be preached concerning prayer and how to use it in life.

        “Learn how to pray in six easy steps”

        “Praying to get anything and everything you need”

        “Getting answers from God”

        “… bla, bla, bla, ….”

        (I think you get the idea.)

It seemed, that during each of the series, the speaker would produce a “cannot fail” checklist for me to use in order to get all my prayers answered and receive just about anything that I could want. All I had to do was everything exactly as instructed on his scholarly studied and eloquently produced list. The steps for anyone to meticulously carry out while attempting to pray were invariably impressive.

Like so many other people that I knew, my next steps were to get involved with the list of things to do (and not do) in prayer, and then launch into the asking, and asking, and asking phase of praying.

……. Since those early days, I believe that I've learned a lot more about prayer and how it relates to God's plan for it in my life. Oh, sure, I still ask when I pray, but before I get to the asking part of my prayer, I am beginning to spend more time becoming aware of His will and aligning mine with His. Now, when I pray, I want answers to my prayers for His glory, and not so much for my own selfish desires. Like I said, I have learned quite a bit more about prayer over the years.

Praying, of course, is always the right thing to do because Jesus told us to do it. This is one of the reasons that I am convinced that I should pray, but there is also another reason. Prayer is what keeps us in communication with the Father.

........How greatly needful that is for all of us…….

Over the years, my fascination and experiences with prayer have grown. It is comforting to be able to talk with my Father about everything. However, out of all the prayers that I have ever prayed, there is one that seems to get answered more often and more quickly than many of the others that I have labored intently over.

The prayer that I use is specific and to the point, but the way that the answer is expected to come is not. My prayer generally gets to the heart of the problem, but it leaves the solution open to the One who ”knows how to give good gifts to His children”

       Matthew 7:11

        11  So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask Him.

That prayer is three simple words…..

“Lord, change me.”

I believe that God changing me fits into the category of “good gifts” from the Father.

So many times we have difficulty knowing what the “good gifts” really are, and we walk around in our clouds of doubt trying desperately to convince others that we have it “all together”.

In some circumstances, a trial is the “good gift” needed from the Father, and at other times, a period of waiting is the “good gift” that the Lord gives to us. In just the same way, sometimes a period of abundance is the “good gift” needed and given to us.

It is difficult for us to figure these things out sometimes because our Father’s thoughts are so advanced of ours……..

Isaiah 55:8

8  "My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts," says the LORD. "And My ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.

The “good gifts” that I receive all depend on what the Lord is attempting to accomplish inside of me!

Whenever I was under the greatest stress and aggravation because of others who did wrong or because of the situation that was driving me crazy, I used to think that I was not the one that needed changing…. It was those things and those people around me that did!

I was convinced that if everyone would just do things my way, everything would just be all right!

(I am sure that you have never had these thoughts.)

It is here I discovered a problem in my thinking while considering the “change me” idea of praying. I felt that if I was the one changed, then my mind would have to accept that maybe the other person’s wrongness, or the other situation’s hurtfulness, had some rightness to it, and I would be validating that wrongness as being okay.

Satan loves to play these mind games on me to divert me away from what God really wants to do in my life.

The truth is, when I really have been wronged, asking God to change me does not change the fact that these outside circumstances were really wrong, but it does give God the permission to do things in my heart, mind, and attitude that go way beyond my feeble attempts to cope with life.

This is God doing stuff inside me that we're talking about here!

When God does something supernatural in my heart, the result is something that I find always acceptable and very agreeable. The times that I have asked the Lord to “change me” have opened the door for Him to do some wonderful things within me. God gets to rearrange and change the decor of my heart and mind in a way that only He can do.

I don't know about you, but sometimes when I am angry, frustrated, hurt, confused, untrusting, and fearful, I want to pray, ”Lord, change this situation”, or ”change this person”, or, “change the whole world!”

(…. Sound familiar?)

However, when I pray “Lord, change me”, I seem to have a quicker response from God to that request. In fact, it is quite cool to sense the changes orchestrated by God within my heart.

        I begin to experience His peace--- even though the storm has not changed.

        I begin to experience His confidence and reassurance even when things are   unsettled and scary.

I love praying this prayer and am learning to pray it more often than in times past.

Watching what God is doing inside me is really becoming an awesome thing!

Every time God rearranges and fixes something inside of me, I always come out in a better way than I was because of His personal intervention in my heart and mind.

I’m not so sure about you, but I really do need God’s touch on the inside of me.

“Lord, change me.”

I suggest you consider praying this prayer occasionally and then trustingly expect the Lord to answer it. There is no doubt in my mind that you will like the results that God gives in answer to this request of Him.

Humbly submitted,

Dan