Bible Reading: Matthew 7:7-11
It had been a LONG day. I was finishing up a project I had been working on for five days and was ready to submit. After switching back and forth between a few different Excel documents, closing the ones I no longer needed, the unthinkable happened. My work was gone! I must have accidentally closed the wrong document thinking it was something else. I went to the folder on my desktop that I had been working out of just to verify. Sure enough, five days of work was gone. What I was I going to do? It was already after 5:30pm. There was no way I was going to be able to meet the deadline, everything was gone.
I needed a break. I walked to the restroom and didn’t speak a word to anyone on the way. I was trying to figure out how in the world I was going to get everything completed within the next 30 minutes. I didn’t have any more time to devote to this project; another one awaited.
While in the restroom, I started to think of a plan of how I could recreate the information. “I would have to pull from different sources, but there’s no guarantee that all the needed information would be available. I would have to work fast if I wanted to get home at a decent hour. Maybe I could do the majority of the work now and then finish up the rest tomorrow morning. I will just have to let them know about the mistake.” Then came the frustrated heavy sigh…
“Ok, God, here’s the deal, I can’t even begin to tell You what happened to all that work and honestly at this point that doesn’t even matter. You know how hard I worked on getting everything together to meet this deadline and You also know what else I have to complete. I have looked everywhere for the work and I don’t have any more time to devote to this project. Please God, I ask that You recover all of the work I did. I don’t know how You are going to do it but I know that You can. In Your son Jesus’ name I pray, Amen!”
I walked back to my desk and open up two different files. The first one was completely empty. The second one I opened had all of my work; everything that I was working on just 15 minutes ago was all there. I didn’t know how, but I definitely knew who.
What have your prayers looked like lately? Have you been specific about the things that you need God to work out on your behalf? Have you been accepting whatever comes your way, trying to figure out how you will make it work? Or have you specifically told God exactly what you need Him to do on your behalf?
God is well aware of everything that we need, so we don’t pray to inform Him of our needs. But we pray to express our inability to do anything without Him. Prayer says, “God I can’t, but I know You can. So that’s why I’m coming to You.” The only way we can undoubtedly know God answers our prays is when we are specific with out request.
What are you going to pray specifically about today? What is it that you really need God to do on your behalf? Specifically lay out everything that you need God to do in your life and watch how He preforms.
Prayer: Father God, thank You for reminding me that You delight in answering my prayers. You take pleasure in addressing the specific concerns of my heart. Help me to remember that specific prayers yield specific results and allows me to see just how powerful You really are. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.