Prayer changes you. I have heard this phrase most of my Christian life and for the most part it’s had a negative connotation. It has made me feel like whatever I was talking to God about he wasn’t really listening. Instead he was secretly working to change what I wanted. I’ve also thought, “Well, then why did he bother saying, ‘Ask and you will receive,’ if he was just going to talk me out of what I was asking for. Can you hear my frustration? Have you felt this way too?
Oh, and don’t bother to pray for a relationship that you’re struggling in because if you’re the one praying God is going to change you and not the other person. At least that’s what this statement has led me to believe throughout the years. It’s this kind of thinking that had me dragging my feet for nearly a year about something for which God had been prompting me to pray.
The situation recently became so unbearable that I could no longer let my frustration keep me from praying. The truth is I didn’t think I was the only one that needed to change, but it no longer mattered; something needed to change, so I started praying. And wouldn’t you know it…I started changing. But it was not at all like I suspected.
The changes that have been occurring are not letting the other party off the hook. Rather, I am being set free. Seeing the truth from God’s perspective. Realizing that everything isn’t, “All my fault.” God is reminding me of things I had forgotten. He is teaching me things I didn’t know – about myself and the other person. If I knew this is what he had in mind I would have started praying a year ago. What a bummer, how much time I wasted not experiencing the freedom God wanted to lavish on me.
Allowing God to change me, through prayer, has been exactly what I needed.
Truth & Freedom Ministries 