God, I thank You for all the things that are going right in my life right now. I thank You for Your Son and I thank You for Your Salvation. My prayer is that You will help me to trust You to seek out Your will for my life and to do those things that help me come closer to You.

God wants us to pray without ceasing, but what do we pray about? And how do we pray correctly?

We often pray for what we see, instead of digging deeper and praying for the root of an issue. God wants us to dig deeper.

For instance, I was recently praying for someone to accomplish something that I knew they needed to do, but God showed me that I needed to pray for them to develop discipline because the lack of it was affecting many areas of their life. I would have prayed for the one area I saw, but God saw much more deeply than I did.

Another time I was praying for someone concerning some problem behavior that I saw, but God showed me that the root of their problem was self-rejection and that I needed to pray for them to know how much God loved them. 

If you are unsure of the root problem or what to pray for in any particular situation, you may want to say to God:
“I love You, Lord, and I wait on You for direction in my prayers today.”

The Holy Spirit will lead us into amazing adventures in prayer if we will simply ask Him what to pray, wait for Him to answer.

Often in our lives, we take action naturally and do little or nothing spiritually.

I struggle with this constantly. I get so focused on my control and what I can do about a difficult situation, that as a result, I don’t give it up to God like He asks us to. When I do this, I find that I end up struggling longer and harder than I would have if I would have just been patient and waited for God to direct me.

In these situations, we have to try and say to God:
“God, I am going to wait on You until You do something about this situation. In the meantime, I am going to be peaceful and enjoy my life while I wait on You.”

When we discipline ourselves to be still and wait on God, our strength builds exponentially. We may need that strength later, when He finally gives us direction. I like to think of this period of waiting as a preparation or “getting ready” period, where God trains us and readies us for what we have to face ahead. 

In other words, in order to execute the will that God has for us, He may make us wait, build our strength, and fully prepare us, in order to better fulfill His plan.

Those who wait on the Lord hear His voice, receive answers, get direction, and gain strength to obey what He speaks to them. Don’t get me wrong; it’s difficult. But if we truly trust in Him, we know He will get us through. He always does!

Many times, instead of turning to Him in prayer, we turn to other people, mistakenly thinking that telling them all about what happened will comfort us, but it doesn’t.

Talking about something that hurts us only stirs up the pain in our emotions and makes it more difficult to overcome. This is one of my personal struggles: I tend to do everything I can think of before turning to God, and nothing ever changes the situation.

One of the ways I try to ask for God’s help is by praying, “God, I need you to comfort me. I don’t want to feel like this. I don’t want to get bitter or develop resentment. I’ve experienced this same kind of pain before and I don’t want my day to be ruined by it. But I’m having trouble handling it and I have to have Your help.”

It’s important that we totally depend on God, and let Him know that we need Him more than anyone or anything.

He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him. (PSALM 91:15)

Feel free, anytime.