What Not To Pray For

What happens when we pray for things? Especially when we pray for things that tend to cause us to grow spiritually, the answers to those prayers come in the form of opportunity…that is, opportunities to practice those things. So because of this, there are a couple of things that you should never pray for.

Humility is one of the things that comes to mind right away, because what seems to happen is that we find ourselves in humiliating situations in which we need to humble ourselves and become all that God desires us to be in the area of humility.

Another is love for enemies. This request is almost always followed by a new enemy popping up, or an old enemy renewing your acquaintance. Nothing seems to cause us more consternation than a visit with someone we genuinely don’t like, but are commanded to love anyway.

But today, I want us to think about another of these things we don’t like praying for, and that is patience. Patience always brings with it opportunities to practice patience, or waiting, or peace in the midst of a trying situation. We are stuck in traffic when we’re late to be somewhere. We’re not getting a response from someone we need information from to complete a task. We are not seeing the speed from our computer to get the job done. Our kids are dragging their feet to get to the car to go to church. Any number of things that cause us to practice being patient.

But patience is much more than just waiting. It is waiting with the proper attitude. “Oh, no, you didn’t, pastor. You didn’t just go and start talking about our attitudes, now did you?” Yes I did.

The fact is that simple waiting is not the same as being patient. Patience demands that we wait with the proper attitude. And what is that proper attitude? It is focusing on the fact that God is in control. It’s looking at our delays not so much as an inconvenience, as a shield that God is using to protect us from something. As we wait, we need to focus on God and rejoice that He is in control…of the traffic, of our coworkers, of the internet, of the kids, and anything else causing us to wait.

So this week, focus on waiting on God, and practice your patience. And when your attitude is right, you might even want to start praying for it.

Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you on Sunday!