Instead of Pleading With God, Try This Prayer Posture
Layers of ivory piled heavenward for weeks—the kind of snow that melts and freezes a half-dozen times, leaving crusty layers like some seven-layer dessert gone horribly wrong. I’d been pleading with God to lead me out of a tough stretch. I had no idea he was about to open my eyes with a very clear object lesson in the form of a pleading child.
We kept the yellow snow shovel propped right next to the front door that year. Every morning, we scraped the icy cement and threw out the salt.
I didn’t appreciate the morning call to shovel the entryway. However, the four-year-old at my side saw it as the very best kind of fun. Despite my best attempts to convince him to stay inside, he shuffled into his snow boots, threw on his winter coat, and bumped into my legs as he aimed to stay in step with my shoveling.
His petitions began about a week into the journey through the blizzards, “Mom, can we go to the store and buy me a snow shovel?”
Day after day he asked for his own plastic snow shovel. Day after day I assured him we’d find him the perfect plastic snow shovel.
As the days became weeks, his asking started to feel a little more like nagging. I reminded him that I would find him a snow shovel. However, I wasn’t running out to the store to find one immediately because learning to wait builds virtue.
Praying or Pleading?
We were a little over a week into the plight of the snow shovel when it dawned on me:
Like a child who asks his parent for the same thing again and again, all too often, I bring the same request to God again and again, speaking to him as if I’d never asked at all. I want to pray effective prayers. Sadly, I position myself as a beggar instead of positioning myself as the child of the King.
I beg for healing for months on end.
I make the same requests for loved ones year after year.
. . . all as if I were asking for the very first time.
We’re told to bring our petitions to God day after day, to keep knocking, seeking, and asking.
Meanwhile, what if the way we knock, seek, and ask matters more than we realize?
We’re told to bring our petitions to God day after day, to keep knocking, seeking, and asking, but what if the way we knock, seek, and ask matters more than we realize? #unansweredprayers #prayer #askingGod Click To TweetA Shift to Replace Pleading with God
As Caleb kept begging for his shovel, I found myself daily reminding him that I heard his request, and a plan was in the works to head to the discount toy store and find the perfect shovel.
I also offered a piece of advice, “Buddy, instead of begging me for the shovel every day, why don’t you thank me that it’s coming?”
What if we were to adopt the same mindset when we’re waiting to see our prayers answered in full?
Instead of making the same requests again and again in a desperate plea, what if we shifted our tone and began thanking God for hearing us and appropriating the answer to our prayers?
Pleading with God Might Look Like This Instead:
Begging for healing would sound more like this:
“Thank you, God, for hearing my prayer for healing. I’m so excited to watch and see how this healing comes to fruition.”
Pleading for provision would sound more like this:
“Thank you for hearing my prayer for provision, Father. Thank you for the promise not to withhold good from those who walk blamelessly before you. I’m expectantly and excitedly watching to see how you bring this provision to pass.”
Pleading for a breakthrough would sound like this:
“Thank you that although I haven’t seen it happen, this breakthrough is coming. I’m excited to watch for it to happen in your perfect timing.”
Replace Pleading With Gratitude
There are many reasons why we sometimes find ourselves waiting to see answers to our prayers; however, while we wait, we honor God by thanking him for what he is doing while we wait. We thank him that everything he does is for our good and his glory.
Like little Caleb, our hearts shift when we stop pleading as beggars and instead give thanks for what is coming. And while the wait is often longer than we would choose, while there are some circumstances in which we’re called to wait until we reach the gates of heaven, the promise for provision still stands.
We don’t pray with gratitude because it’s some kind of secret formula that will nudge God to act more quickly. Instead, we pray with gratitude because something in our own hearts shifts when offering prayers with the joy of gratefulness.
What Happens in Your Heart When Pleading Becomes Thanking
That blustery winter, I’d been harboring some heavy requests of my own: requests about healing and provision and breakthrough that felt like crushing blows with each day of waiting. And this kind of waiting can be a joy-stealer.
However, as I shifted from prayers of pleading with God to prayers of gratitude for what I waited to see come to fruition, the gratitude did something in my heart. It pushed out the fear. It pushed out the worry.
And when winter eased into spring with its intermittent flurries and daffodils poking through leaf-strewn earth, I had not yet seen one of those prayer requests come to fullness. But my heart had shifted from a posture of fear to a posture of joy. Restlessness was replaced with peace. Anxiety was pushed aside by hope. And sometimes this is the greatest gift of all: Joy, peace, and hope in the waiting.
A Free Devotional to Help You Pray:
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