Prayer requests

 

It's prayer request day.

Do you ever feel self-conscious because you are asking for support for the same request again? And again? And again? Do you wonder if there's a "this is too long" yardstick so that you know when to stop and when to stop asking others to pray with you?

Dear believer, don't you listen to the devil! He would love for you to limit the time you pray for something......to make it a short prayer (you've spent enough time on that, move on!) and then to stop praying for it altogether (you're still praying about that? Give it up, girl!).

Don't you listen! 

I know we have talked before about making a list of requests. How many minutes or seconds should we pray about each one? Some folks can get paralyzed by the question. Ten seconds each? Read the list to Him? Just hold it up and ask Him to bless the list? (I'm not being facetious here. That's certainly an option.)

Some people get really hung up on this. They avoid giving their prayer requests to others, and so then they concentrate on the worship part of their prayers (which is perfectly ok) or spending most of their time praying scripture (again, nothing wrong there) or just plain asking for His will (absolutely important, too). But wait a minute! The Bible also encourages us to pray about specific requests!

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. (Philippians 4:6)

Perhaps we should pray about any area of our life (or for another person's life) until we can get up from our knees in complete trust. In faith that it's all taken care of. If that issue causes us unease later that day, to me that is a signal that it stays on the list a while longer. It may be an issue of God showing me something I need to learn. It may be that I need to actually "do" something about the request. Do I sense that I've not learned or done what I need to do, yet? That I need to "work on me" some more? If I don't have a feeling of trust and complete peace about it, it doesn't get crossed off the list. And that means that some things stay on that list for years! 

Here's the yardstick I use: if it makes me uneasy, causes me doubt, or feels like a burden, it remains on my prayer request list. When I have total peace about it, it can drop off. Does that make sense, dear readers?

I completely believe, with all my heart, that God gives us burdens that we need to pray for that may remain unresolved for years. It may be that he wants us to persist in prayer for ourselves; it may be for someone else. I totally "get" that. I recall reading that the man whom the world knows as St. Augustine persisted in sin for many years - his mother prayed over him for over seventeen years before he accepted Christ. He went on to give to the world many letters, sermons, and his "Confessions," where he told about the grace and mercy of God.

God wants to give us a state of joyful peace; He wants us to completely trust in Him. Praying over our list of requests is the way we can talk to Him and then hear His heart. Pour out your heart to Him, Christian, and don't take that request off your list until Jesus gives you that peace.