Stretching Our Prayers Past Our Pain

My prayers don’t go far enough.

Maybe your prayers need some stretching too.

Often our prayers begin and end with asking God to change the way things are around us.

• “Provide enough money this month”
• “Protect us as we travel”
• “Heal my friend from pain”
• —etc.

These are fine prayers, and all legitimate, but incomplete.

They just don’t go far enough.

Warming Up to Stretch

Asking God to bless our circumstances may be praying for Him to change nothing about them. Perhaps He may even allow them to worsen . . . so that true blessing may result. This kind of a mindset stretches our prayer lives further than the here and now.

Jesus had this perspective when He prayed in Gethsemane:

“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42).

Life will hand you what seems like a raw deal. Solutions seem as gnarled as the olive trunks in Gethsemane. And when God’s answer to your prayers seems cruel and anything but good, you will wage no greater battle than the surrender of your will.

At that moment, when God’s goodness seems far away, you stand only inches away from using anger to justify your sin.

But I promise you, surrender lies at the very core of whatever grieves you. And surrendering in absolute trust to the Father—as Jesus did in Gethsemane—remains the path to peace.

Jesus prayed for different conditions, sure, but Jesus also allowed for the perspective that the Father knows all. The Father may have a better plan that includes pain.

Pain? A better plan? Often, yes. In Jesus’ case, it did.

Stretching Past Our Pain

Tell me what is better:

• A proud person with good conditions?
• A humble person in all conditions?

You and I both know the right answer. But do we believe it enough to pray for God’s will? That’s the struggle.

We stretch our prayers when we pray past our pain toward its purpose.

Question: Have you noticed your prayers are more about changing your circustances than they are about changing you? Please leave your comment.

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