The Things We Forget to Ask for When We Pray

Lord…

Help me foster a deeper relationship with you.

Knowing about God, reading the Bible, and being a generally “good person” are all nice; but what matters most is having a personal, honest, and true relationship with God. Keep in mind, there is always room to grow in your relationship. If this sounds scary to you, good — it should. God is unimaginably Awesome, and the fact that the creator of the universe is waiting for you to get to know him more should make you feel undeserving and inadequate, but also reverent — utterly amazed and in awe that he created you, loves you, and wants you to know him. This should lead to increased gratitude and faith in Jesus who reconciled for our many inadequacies.

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Give me the strength to face life’s adversities.

You can try to go at it alone, but you’ll be like a soldier going to battle without any amour. Let’s make this very clear. Just because you have God in your life doesn’t mean it’s going to be a cakewalk and no bad thing will ever happen to you. You might even face more trials. Sometimes those challenges are there to help strengthen you; because at the end of the day, your soul is way more important to God. Tough love sucks.

Let’s make another thing clear: if knowing God did make no bad thing ever happen to us, then everyone will hop on the God train for all the wrong reasons and not bother to have that deep, honest, and true relationship we already talked about, that he wants us to have with him. However, his strength can carry us through difficult times that are bound to happen to anyone, no matter who they are.

Increase my faith, trusting in your love, wisdom, justice, and power.

We might not understand why things happen, but his ways are beyond our understanding. Good things will happen and also some not so good. But while we see only a few of the puzzle pieces, he sees the entire picture. He knows exactly how all the pieces fit together.

Help me have patience, knowing that you will make all things right in your good time.

God’s time is always the PERFECT time. It’s easy to get impatient and wonder what’s taking so long. But imagine the solar system and how the planets revolve and spin on their axis at just the perfect timing. He has the perfect timing over your life as well.

Give me grace so that your light shines to others through me.

Having grace is not easy. The idea of turning the other cheek, treating people as they don’t deserve to be treated (based on how they treat you), or letting go of your pride and admitting your mistakes are not easy, but those are all examples of having grace. So yeah, praying for some might be a good idea because nobody naturally does or looks forward to doing those things. Furthermore, as a society, we tend to value the lack of grace. So when you show it, with the help of God’s Holy Spirit inside you, it stands out as a shining example to others of God’s unfailing love.

Help me to have joy founded in you, even when life gets me down.

So many things in life can deplete our joy: rejection, being stuck in unfulfilling jobs and careers, loss of a loved one — to name a few. Praying for strength to carry through is one thing. Praying for joy goes beyond that. This joy comes from a deep, honest, and true relationship. It also comes from sincere gratitude for the good things you do have. Finally, it comes from the faith that he has a well-intended soul plan for your life that’s beyond your understanding. Because he loves you, that plan is ultimately good.

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