Good Monday morning! Thanksgiving week is here! You may need a superpower to be thankful on a Monday so have some prayer this morning. That's right, the one superpower that we all have immediate access to at any time of the day or night is the power of prayer. Does that mean a simple mention of the name of Jesus will get us anything we want? Not necessarily, but sometimes those "I wants" don't seem quite so important when we bring them to God in prayer. Many a time I have found something I thought I wanted oh-so-bad to be not that important after a little bit of prayer about that thing. That 'thing' has never been limited to material possessions either. The thing might be the desire to see a person to tell him something that day. A little prayer does not make the person any less important to me, but the meeting might be able to wait for a day or two as the Holy Spirit reminds me to consider the situation of the other fellow. A bit of selfishness does sometimes keep our prayer from rising as it should.
Selfishness in prayer is a bit like a heavy lid on top of the bread pan. Why won't that dough rise? You pop off that heavy lid of selfishness and find that your bread dough has been trying to rise and is in fact all squooshed up against the lid. (Heh, I got to use 'squooshed' this morning!) The superpower of prayer is muted by our selfishness. We cannot take off and fly in prayer when the dumbbells of selfishness are strapped to our feet. Selfishness in prayer is a long list of 'I wants'; super power in prayer is asking God what He wants. Selfishness in prayer is all about me; super power in prayer is bringing up the needs of that other person. Each of us will have supplications to bring before God. Not a problem with that, but maybe those requests can wait until after we listen to God or talk over the spiritual condition of a loved one with Him. We have access to this superpower, but we don't always use it well.
Sometimes when I am in pain of some sort, i might send up a prayer that is all about my hurting. I can imagine after those times the Holy Spirit making intercession for me and telling God, "He really isn't as selfish as he sounds tonight. It's just that he is caught up in the pain of the moment, sir." We do have an advocate in Jesus and an intercessor in the Holy Spirit. Our prayers, imperfect as the one making them, do not go to God without the influence of the Spirit within us. Want to think in terms of your superpower? Remember that when you pray, you and the Holy Spirit are praying to God together. You are listening to God with the Spirit, making intercession for others with the Spirit, and making supplication for yourself with the Spirit. How can God not listen to His own Holy Spirit? Prayer, the super power we all have in us!
Be grateful for today in Christ!
Bucky
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