Who Are You Praying To?

So this morning, I read my devotional and a couple of questions grabbed me.  What do you see in your mind when you think about Jesus/God?  Do you see Jesus on the Cross or do you see Him seated at the right hand of God?  I guess I’d never thought about that before.  I almost always think of Jesus on the cross. I mean, I usually wear a cross as a reminder of His great sacrifice for my salvation. 

But by thinking of Him on the cross, how am I limiting His power in my life?  What do I not ask for because of where I see Him in my mind?  Jesus is so much bigger than the cross.  He holds the keys to Death and Hell (Rev 1:18).  God raised Him from the dead and He’s seated at the right hand of God.  The one and only living God who sits on the throne (heaven) and the earth is His footstool (Isaiah 66:1). 

Have you ever thought, when you’re going through a problem or there’s some obstacle that seems so big, the God who loved you enough to send His Son to die and shed blood for your sins is the same God who is resting His feet on the earth.  Needless to say, my mind was blown when I thought about it. 

That’s why God made it clear that His thoughts are so much higher than our thoughts and His ways so much higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:9).  We can’t think or imagine what He can do, because we can’t comprehend how vast and powerful He really is…..we don’t recognize how big He is.  Stop limiting God by your own thoughts, seek His.  Stop limiting God by your will, seek His (Matt. 6:33).   

We tend to fear what we don’t understand and can’t control.  If we trust God to lead and guide us knowing He is all-knowing and that He created and owns it all, why are we really concerned?  Is it because we don’t know the outcome?  No matter what we do, we won’t know it anyway.  We can guess but we can’t be sure. 

Trusting God to know what’s best and to have our best interests at heart, then being obedient to Him is the only sure way to know that everything will turn out okay (Romans 8:28), even when it doesn’t turn out the way we thought or imagined.  He’s got this, whatever it is.  Remember that the next time you pray.

Are you Seeking God or Trying to Figure it Out Yourself?

Have you ever stopped to think about what a small part of the whole we really are? How our problems aren’t exceptionally big in the grand scheme of things, no matter how they seem to us. For me, I’ve been stressing about all these decisions I have to make at work and some of them feel really big…career changing.  I've been praying about them, but without receiving the peace I was expecting.  

This morning, I read the book of Lamentations.  It was a hard book for me to read.  It’s a book about a prophet crying out because his country is suffering and desperate, as a result of her own actions.  What got me in this book, and reflecting on my life right now, is that even when God is angry with us and we are disciplined, there is still love.  God still loves us and hears us when we cry out to Him.  Even when we don’t seek Him first, He’s still there because He loves us.  He’s there in our weakness and He wants to be our strength and provide us answers.  They may not be on our timetable but He is faithful even when we’re not, because that is His nature. 

God wants us to lean on Him in everything and everywhere, no matter the circumstance whether it be big or small.  He wants our surrender and our obedience.  Sometimes, He has to show us who we are, so we acknowledge who He is.  This morning, I finally recognized that I was trying to do God’s job by figuring it all out by myself, as if I ever could, instead of seeking Him and asking Him for the answers.  I was under the impression that this problem was too small to really depend on God to provide the answers - how arrogant. What a waste of time and energy and tears and frustration!  While I realize God won’t do for me what I can do for myself, I can’t do what God can in and through me.  Have you realized the difference?