Putting away prayer

In the last post I challenged you to think about prayer in a different way... to stop beating your prayers into the altar and consider just praising God as if He had already performed that miracle and given you that answer.

Today I want to follow up on that thought. I was at church Sunday when I was talking with my pastor's wife about some things in my life I have been praying over. I shared with her that I feel at rest and at peace in my spirit  -- almost indescribable. She said in her own experiences she knew that God spoke to her in truth and in love. However, in those circumstances that were so big, so overwhelming and sometimes so painful, God dealt with her in love only.

What she meant by that was to say that God knows we know the truth...there are times in our lives when we know that we know that we know what the Bible says about our situation and we are standing on those promises and truths.... God doesn't have to teach them to us, we already know them.

But what we do need is love. We need for God to welcome us up on his lap where he can wrap us in His arms and just love us through. These are the moments in life when we need to stop pleading and start praising and lavishing our love on the Lord. If God has put a promise in your heart, praise Him for it. You need to celebrate as if it has already happened. You need to stop asking, because God has already answered.

Mark Batterson writes in his book, The Circle Maker:

And for the record, even if God doesn't answer the way you want, you still need to praise through. That is when it's most difficult to praise God, but that is also when our praise is most pure and most pleasing to God.