Next Level: PrayerSample

You are allowed to tell God the things that you want. Read that sentence again. It’s okay to bring your prayer requests to God. He tells us to ask him for things. Often in prayer, we go too far one way or the other. We don’t ask God for anything because we’re afraid to, or only pray when we want something. Neither of those options is best, so we need to find a middle ground. Jesus, when he modeled prayer for us, asked God to “give us the food we need,” but before he said that, he reminded God that his “will be done.” Jesus first acknowledged the fact that God is in control and His will is best. Then, Jesus asked God for what he needed. We should follow that same pattern. We can ask God for anything. But, we also need to remember that God is in control, and his ways are a lot better than ours. He knows what we need, even when we think we know what’s best. He sees our lives from a better perspective than we do, and he knows what will be best for us in the long run. We tend to get mad at God when he doesn’t answer our prayers the way we think he should, but that is just the wrong way to go about praying. When we ask God for things with the perspective that he will ultimately give us what we need, our mindset shifts, and we start to see our lives out of a new lens. We give up things that we might have gotten stuck on before. We accept what God gives us with thankfulness. And ultimately, we trust that the way God answers our prayers is best because He is in control. Challenge: Today, write down a list of requests for God. Pray over each one specifically, then end by asking God for wisdom and trust. Tell him if you have difficulty letting go of what you want to embrace what God knows is best. Remember that God’s plan is always best, so even if he answers your prayer differently than you’d like at the moment, He is still good and in control.