Our session appropriately ended with The LORD's Prayer especially the key verse in Matthew 6:10 which says:
Your Kingdom come
Your will be done
On earth as it is in Heaven
Often when I'm too familiar with a verse I have come to appreciate the Message version which often gives a new perspective to me, a fresh look. It totally fit the study and here is how it read:
Our Father in Heaven,
Do what's best.
You're in charge!
You can do ANYTHING You want!
Anything ... can you pray a prayer like that? God you can do anything with my life. You can take or use anything I have. You can do anything with my children. You can use my house to do anything you need. You can fill that extra space in the bed in the spare room. Have your way.
Jennie and her husband prayed these kind of prayers. They made their list and brought anything and everything before God to be used of and by Him. They prayed this prayer with willing hearts for about a week and then everything began to change ... He started speaking. He started checking things off the list He wanted to use to write a beautiful story for their family and as she would say, He is not done with them yet.
The thing we often fear the most is the unknown, right? So a prayer like "anything" is hard to pray, correct?
The verses above this in the message version says something like this:
Don't be prayer ignorant. Prayer isn't about formulas and saying things to get what you want! When you pray remember who you are talking to. He is our loving Heavenly Father who knows more about what you need than you do. He is so loving that is why you can pray with confidence:
You're in charge!
You can do ANYTHING You want!
The verses after it remind us that there is a connection between what God does and what you do. For example, you can't get forgiveness without forgiving others. If you refuse to do your part you potentially cut yourself off from God's part.
God wants to bless us. He wants us to experience joy and love and peace, but if we aren't willing to a) let Him write our "anything" stories and b) aren't willing to do our parts we may be missing some of the best things ... Jennie Allen puts it this way in her book "Anything":
This God is real and He is worth my surrender ...
I knew that no matter what challenges lay ahead,
this could be the most beautiful story of my life.
Tears came as I felt God whispering,
Jennie, what if you had been too afraid to obey me?
Look at what you would have missed.
We doubt because of the risk, the cost,
the abandonment of rights and comforts [and]
the disapproval of people you really love ...
[but] we were made for this bigger story ...
[we have to] empty [ourselves] to be filled ...
joy comes from giving yourself entirely and unreservedly to God.
Prayers like anything place us in the midst of stories.
These stories have an author who writes characters, places, and parts.
He develops story lines that are actually quite epic,
even if they feel momentarily insignificant ...
[but] the hardest part is we get selfish and lazy ...
[but] in trusting God with everything
[our lives] explode into something beautifully meaningful ...
We want God to knock out suffering and poverty [for example]
and ironically, He gave us just about all we need to do it.
There are a million creative ways to give our lives away.
God is just waiting.
After Jennie and her husband prayed the "anything prayer" she writes this:
We had seen more of God in two years than we had in our entire lives ...
God had wanted our hearts, not any dramatic sacrifice ...
simple obedience ...
She writes about her friend and I want this to be my life story as well:
She is just a normal girl
filled with an extraordinary God
who is using her for extraordinary purposes,
all because she said yes.
You're in charge, God!
You can do ANYTHING You want!
What is your anything?
Blessings Abundant
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