Sometimes God’s silences are caused by sin.
p.116
Share to the group a statement or scripture that resonates with you from today’s reading and a responding prayer…
What Happens When You Pray?
Sometimes God’s silences are caused by sin.
p.116
Share to the group a statement or scripture that resonates with you from today’s reading and a responding prayer…
“This man & his friends asked for a temporary gift, but Jesus wanted to make the man a child of God for eternity so he could inherit everything!” This & the story of Lazarus really spoke to me. For a while it felt like God was silent, or ignoring my prayers but He gave my mom the gift of eternal life rather than temporary life here. I’m not sure where my faith would be if she experienced physical healing on Earth. I’m sure it would have also grown tremendously as I would have experienced a miracle, but I know my heart would have not been set on eternity but life on Earth. I pray that I am able to experience a greater revelation of Himself to me. May I have absolute dependence & trust in Him. May I remind myself daily of the gift of eternal life with Him and not be caught on the things of this world.
The silence of God does not mean He left us alone. It can be a reminder for repentance or God’s preparation to bring me into a greater revelation of Himself. Often times, I get discouraged of praying when knowing God is silent. Today I come to understand that silent can also be God’s form of communication. God is always communicating with us even when he does not speak to us right away in our prayers. Silent of God is not a sign of God giving up on us. In contrast, it’s God preparing a major lesson for our life, that require us to seek him harder and be more sensitive to his words.
The phrase that stood out to me today said, “you must decide whether you will do what you want and ask God to bless it or go to work where He is working.” I don’t know whether that is a real choice as I feel that we should always seek to work where He is working and not ask God to bless our own endeavors. As I have said before and as it is stated in the Bible, I would rather have God determine my steps than for me to plan my own course as I know that whatever God has planned will be much better than anything that I can plan. I pray that God will help me to see where He is answering my prayers and that I would be able to respond to His answers and to work wherever He is working.
“Our problem is that when we pray, we usually don’t relate to our prayers anything that subsequently happens.” I, personally, never really stick around with my prayers to find out if what I pray comes to fruition in any way other than my expectations. When I pray, it’s usually a one-and-done thing that I don’t think about later until something remotely related to what I prayed about happens. What I fail to do, though, is to be observant of how God answers my prayers in His ways and not through my expectations. Like, my prayers usually consist of general things and the things I do get specific about get lost about through the day. I think a good solution to this is through a journal as I’m starting to realize keeping a record of things is going to help me in the long run when it comes to being observant with how God is working in and through my life through circumstances and prayer.