Prayer Thoughts
I had a little meeting with the Holy Spirit last night regarding our needs and how to reach into the unseen ocean of His supply to get the support that we need. I have my room payment due tomorrow and instead of telling me to pray, He told me to think positive thoughts and believe that all we need will be there in time.
In the nearly 5 years that God has carried us through this journey of being supported by invisible support, there is one lesson that He has shown me that towers above all. That lesson is about how to pray with child-like faith.
The secret is to take the question out of the prayer and turn your prayers into thoughts of what you hope will happen. When I used to pray, “Dear God, I pray that you will send what we need…etc”. I started my approach to God as a question of doubt.
But the Lord showed me that He has already attached His approval to hope and that all we need to do is pick it up without question. The number one way to worship God with all of our hearts, minds, and body is by how we think.
For the past year, God would send me signs before each enormous room payment was about to be due. He would send me the number $3000, or $2000, and even $10,000.
I learned that if I picked up those signs without questioning Him, like a faith-filled trusting child, the promise of provision would emerge. It happened for me every time too. The amount that God promised me would show up in the exact number (and often more) than what He showed me.
I did stumble once when I questioned it (which is doubt). That time when I questioned it with unbelief, was the most painful month I had ever had. I ended up laying on the floor in a pool of tears and begging for help.
I wanted to escape life so bad because there was so much pain in that moment. God showed up in my weakness and saved me from falling, but He showed me that this doesn’t have to be painful at all.
In fact, it is the opposite, it is joyful–when we trust and believe without question. The first and foremost step of believing is simply believing that it can happen–no matter how impossible it seems or looks.
I won’t lie, living this way is really scary at times. It feels like sometimes I am jumping off of the bridge and trusting that Jesus will materialize to catch me. I hate facing the fears, but every time that I do, my faith grows bigger and God gives us more and more each time.
I have always been the person who runs from fears, but God has been walking me through facing my fears so that I can see His loving presence materialize into my life. Every time He shows me that I will be getting encounters of love, it is bitter-sweet, because I know that I will also be facing fears.
Jesus is the real-life Hero to save us from every fear. The outcome is always worth the moment of discomfort and being afraid.
If I can share and impart anything to you from this journey, it is to pray with your thoughts. That is the ultimate step of faith and confidence. When I was in debt to the landlord $3000, the Lord gave me a promise of $3000 coming to the surface to help me.
Instead of praying for what He already had given spiritually, I would keep thinking that I have the $3000 and that it will emerge any moment. I would visualize it showing up in my account and I would see myself paying my room bill.
The scary part is not knowing when it will happen and sometimes not having that kind of control really frustrates me. But that is when I have to trust God to fulfill His promise.
It is not our job to deliver the fulfillment. It is our job to believe that it will happen and to stay expectant.
“Blessed [happy, prosperous, to be admired] is the man who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at my doorposts” Proverbs 8:34
The only formula that you need to see your desired results come to pass by faith is to think that they can and even better is to think that they will. God meets us at our place of expectation.
On the contrary, if you are always expecting bad, then that is what you are drawing to yourself. Faith is not biased, what we believe is what we will see come to pass. That can be bad or good. Therefore, if you are going to put your faith in anything–put your faith in what you hope and not in what you fear.
I remember at Christmas time, God showed me $10,000 and it was so hard not to doubt it because I had no idea how I could possibly get that kind of money. It was a week before Christmas and my biggest fear was hurting my children.
I was so afraid that we would be homeless for the holidays and that I wouldn’t be able to give them the Christmas gifts that they longed for in their hearts. It was the first time in over 4 years that we were able to have a tree.
When I thought about the horrible tragedy of having to throw out the tree and move out, I was weeping in an unbearable sorrow. My rent money and Christmas were due at the same time and it was so scary.
But I could not afford to think badly. I could not afford to hurt my kids by imagining hurtful outcomes. So instead, I picked myself out of the dirt pile of unbelief and I imagined God’s promise showing up.
Even though it looked impossible, I decided to trust in His promise to show up. It came so unexpectedly too. God gave me the idea to make a phone call about an old account that I had.
When I got on the phone with a woman, she said that there was something that she could do to help me. She put me on hold while she worked out a problem. Then she returned to the line and said that I may be approved for some back-paid money.
The next day, I had a deposit in my bank account for $10,000, just like God showed me. If I had doubted the sign of promise that God sent me, then I don’t believe it would have happened. Because the promises of God do not prosper when mixed with unbelief.
If anything, I am encouraging myself tonight to make my thoughts prayers of confident faith. I am going to believe (by thinking positive) that I will have my room money in my account on time tomorrow and a food refill and that I will have the other silent needs that I have given to God covered too.
For 5 years or so, I have seen this work time and time again. It takes faith, but faith is so simple. It is to think from the outcome that you hope to have and to imagine that it will happen.
That is what it is like to think like a child. If you spend a day with a little child, you will likely spend the day playing make-believe and pretending that your biggest dreams are real and that you have them.
It’s not about trying to get more mature, it is about reminding yourself how to be young and fully cared for by the ever-present support and love of our Father God.
Blessings to you today and I am sending you thoughts of faith–that God will do just as He showed you–and then some!
Love, Dannette