Presenting Requests

Have you ever had a day, a week, or even a month, when you are continually reminded of something?

Where everywhere you go the same thing is repeated to you over and over again? When even just rummaging through a box of papers you come across the same thing?

It's like God is really just gob smacking you and saying, "Just stop and listen for once would you!"

Wanna know what it is that keeps coming at me? Of course you do, and trust me it will benefit all who pause to take this one in. I mean really take it in and heed what is being said.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

Pretty big stuff eh? Well maybe not at first but if you stop, and I mean full. on. stop. Consider the words. Think about the implications. Follow through with it. This is life changing.

You don't need to be anxious, nervous, afraid, uneasy, restless, stressed, concerned, apprehensive, distressed or anything like that. Ever. Why do you think that is? I know this may be hard for some to hear and there will be those of you who don't agree or understand where I am coming from here. I am going to tell you though it is because God cares about you. He loves you and yes wants the best for you. God knows your every need, and even more so He knows your every desire. God wants only good things for you.

(I think someone just read that and felt really angry. I know shitty crappy things happen everyday and suffering seems to abound more than anything. We have all been tremendously hurt, and while that was not God's will for your life I promise He can make beauty from ashes. send me a message and I will be happy to talk it out with you)

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Did you see that? You are more valuable. God sees you, and He knows. He knows everything about you, including what you need, and guess what He still loves you. (Even if you aren't perfect! He loves you where you are today, right now in this moment) God loves you so much that He wants to give you what you need and even more... He wants to give you what you desire.

(Here is where I throw in my thoughts about how as parents we know our kids desire candy for dinner, and while we want to give our kids things they want we also give them what they need, like veggies)

I apologize for all my tangents here but it strikes me that someone is sitting there asking how I could possibly know that God loves them so to pause for a second I just need to share this first.

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

I know God loves you because God is love. Love is sacrificial and beautiful, and there is nothing that could ever prevent God from loving you. God wants nothing more than to be reconciled to you, to be in relationship with you...

Really that brings us back to the initial thing I was writing about! By prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

If God knows what we need and desire, why pray? What's up with that whole part of it?

Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’“For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think,yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’”
 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

It seems to me God wants to hear from you. We live in this crazy instant gratification society where if things don't happen with a snap of our fingers we tend to give up. Here's the thing, in the waiting we get to build character. More over in the suffering, we get to build character.

Let me say that again so you don't miss that. In the waiting, and in the suffering, you build character.

It is often in times of distress, such as was the case of the widow we read about, that we have the opportunity to draw close to God and for faith to be built up. We learn to trust in God, and in His faithfulness.

We talk to God because we have a relationship with Him.

Let me ask you this, have you ever had someone who was a friend but then only called when they needed something? What kind of friend is that? What happened to your relationship with that person?

God loves you and He is pursuing you. That being said He is a gentleman and has given you the gift of free will. God loves you so much that He won't force you to come to Him, but rather just extends an invitation and waits for you to respond.



Want to know more? If you have any questions about what I wrote today or are curious about how to respond to God's invitation to you please feel free to message me and I will get back to you as soon as I can.  All quotes were from the New Living Translation of the bible and included Philippians 4:6, Mathew 6 :25-34, 1 John 3:16, John 10:11, John 3:16, John 13:34-35.