Change Our Want-er
"Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.” John 14:14
Great memory verse, but what happens when we pray for these things and they don’t happen? There have been so many times when this has happened to me and deep down in my soul I call BS on God (Bible Study). I know, we shouldn't doubt God’s decisions and/or existence but there have been many times that I have. And trying really hard to just not entertain those thoughts isn’t helpful either. When we repress them, a darkness begins to spread through our faith until it extinguishes the light. Talk about a faith and contentment killer!
How do we align our wills and prayers with God’s? How do we become content with HIS will and answers to our prayers, hopes and dreams?
The problem in my doubt is not necessarily God’s answer (yes, no, or wait), but in my expectations. There have been seasons where His answer was not good enough for me. What I wanted was apparently not what He wanted, or at least our timing didn’t coincide, and that led to doubt and frustration. But we dare not ever tell anyone, or else they’ll think less of us or else they’ll try to “Re-convert” us:) We’ll hit doubts in another series, but this 10000minutes blog series has been on contentment. We started by practicing humility (having a right view of ourselves, being mindful of who we are and whose we are), then we practiced clinging tightly to Jesus in the midst of our worry, then last week we practiced thankfulness.
This week we are practicing alignment with God’s want-er. Yes, you read that right! Dallas Willard (one of my heroes), talked about God’s want-er vs our want-er. Meaning, what God wants and what we want. Dallas would talk about praying for our wanters to be changed and realigned with God’s. This has been a game changer for me. It’s a realignment of our expectations and wants to fit what’s best for us and for the Kingdom of God. We touched on prayer as a realignment in our last Prayer series, if you wanna check that out.
Can you look back on your life and see places where you really wanted something so badly and God had other plans? What were they? What was your posture during it? What was your stress level, and did it help?
Usually when we ask for Jesus to re-align our want-er, we go straight to Him changing the “Things” we want. But I’m convinced that it all starts with the “Who” we want, and that that will ultimately change the “What” we want. So when we read my favorite Jesus invitation (John 15), we see that staying not just close to, but attached to Jesus (the Vine), we will have all we need.
I really love how John 14:14 reads in The Message:
"From now on, whatever you request along the lines of who I am and what I am doing, I’ll do it. That’s how the Father will be seen for who he is in the Son. I mean it. Whatever you request in this way, I’ll do."
So this weeks 10000minute practice is to ask Jesus to change your want-er. In our pursuit of Jesus and His contentment, we are gonna use our breathing again this week:
Breathe in: Jesus
Breathe Out: What do you want today?