“Why didn’t you just ask me in the first place?”  Devotional #19

           

            I am naturally an absent minded person, especially when I’m in a busy season of life.  There have been times when I’m running all over the house searching for my glasses unable to locate them.  It usually is not until I get frustrated that I stop and ask the Lord to please help me find them.  Then I’d find them sitting on my head!  There have been times that I have misplaced my keys.  I search all over the house and when I get frustrated because I cannot find them I stop and pray.  Then I find my keys. Same thing has happened with my cell phone.  I’ll misplace it, usually in between the car seat and the seat belt or in some pocket in my purse.  When I get frustrated from not being able to find it I stop and ask the Lord to please help me find them.  Each time I imagine the Lord saying to me, “Why didn’t you just ask me in the first place?” 

            Why is it that I wait so long to pray and ask for God’s help with these things?  It’s usually because I’m in a hurry and am depending on myself.  This is why I always come up short.  I know better!  Yet I have repeated this same pattern many times: try on my own because I feel it’s too mundane and unimportant to bring to God.  Fail because I’m depending solely on myself and then surrender and ask the Lord for help. 

            In Mathew 6:33 Jesus said, “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”  “Seek first his kingdom” does include turning to God for the mundane.  For the things we consider unimportant.  Here’s the thing.  If it is important to us, even for just a moment, then it is important to God.  David had an interesting journey with God.  He had such a close relationship with God that he was called God’s friend.  David wrote in Psalm 4:1, “Answer me when I call you, O my righteous God.  Give me relief from distress; be merciful to me and hear my prayer.”  He also wrote in Psalm 17:6, “I call on you, O God, for you will answer me; give ear to me and hear my prayer.”    Daniel was always praying.  Daniel 6:10, “…Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God…” 

            I know prayer is important.  I also know that prayer is powerful.  I know that to pray means to communicate with God.  I love to pray and pray consistently.  Truth is that when it is crunch time and I’m “running around like a chicken without a head” and it’s the mundane day-to-day on-the-go stuff that concerns me prayer is not on my mind.  The reason is because I don’t want to bother God with what I think is not important.  But who am I to determine what is and is not important to God?  Who am I to determine if God cares about the miniscule or not?  Is this not presumptuous of me?  The definition of presumptuous is to be rude or arrogant, inconsiderate, disrespectful, or overconfident, especially when something is done that you were not entitled or qualified to do.  So every time I determined that something, no matter how small, was not important enough for God, I was being presumptuous!  Lord, forgive me.

            In Mathew 21:22 Jesus said, “If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”  Whatever means anything and or everything you can ever think of.  I know that there are no limits to God’s power and that it does include taking care of the miniscule, the mundane, the things that are branded insignificant.  Ephesians 3:20 says, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work with us…”   2 Timothy 3:16-17 says, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”   

            God left us His guidebook called the Bible so that we can not only learn but apply what we learn to our lives.  It is when we apply His Truths to our lives that we can strengthen our faith and do what is good.  Getting caught up in the busy-ness of life is dangerous.  That is why it is so important to always be in the Word, applying the Word and praying on all occasions. 

            Would you be willing to take on this challenge with me?  Pray for God’s help for everything, the important stuff, the mundane stuff, the miniscule and insignificant stuff.  All of it is part of our day-to-day living and it is because it is a part of our life that it is important and needs to be included in our prayers.

 

Thank you for reading this devotional.  My dear friend, I appreciate you and am praying for you.  God bless you!

 *If you would like to read this same devotional in Spanish or know of someone that would please visit my Spanish blog at www.ministerioreflejandolaverdad.blogspot.com