What's Your Why (Prayer)

DISCLAIMER: This blog is NOT to discourage anyone from praying at all. I encourage you to pray whenever and however the Lord leads you to pray!

It’s more so to get us to check our heart posture while praying.

With the sacrifice that was made through Jesus Christ, we are able to pray and ask the Father for whatever we need and it’ll be given to us! (John 15:16, John 16:26) Not only that, but we are also able to come to God as our Father as children of His (Romans 8:14-16)!

With that as a reminder, prayer really is as simple as having a conversation with our Father. We get to come to God with whatever is on our heart and mind and pour out to Him. He already knows EVERYTHING already anyway. There’s nothing that can be hidden from Him, so I choose to just talk about it all and ask for understanding in the things where I have none.

I will admit that in the past, I hadn't always thought about prayer in that way or had that mindset toward prayer. When we don’t really understand the gift that prayer is, we tend to think about it on only a surface level or not appreciate it as we should.

Without praying wholeheartedly and with the right heart posture, eventually over time a person could become lukewarm in their walk.

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Here are some ‘whys’ that could be harmful to our prayer life:

1. Praying to feel more righteous than someone else

2. Praying out of routine

3. Praying to get what we want

Now, some people may be thinking, ‘We’re supposed to be righteous’, ‘routines are helpful’, and ‘the Lord said he would give us the desires of our heart’.

well...

Just hear me out!

Let’s get into it and break down why these 'whys' can be harmful to our prayer life.

1) To feel more righteous or superior than others

Yes, the word does talk about us being righteous, turning from our wicked ways, and keeping our hands clean. He didn’t say that so that we could turn our nose up at others for the things that we think that they are doing or not doing. He tells us to do those things for our sake, so that we can be ready for when he returns.

Also, the word talks about how we shouldn’t be prideful and how we should instead be humble. It talks about what happens to those who choose pride and for those who choose to be humble.

There is a parable in the Bible in Luke 18:9-14 that will bring this point into more context. I encourage you to read for yourself.

In this parable, there are two men, one is a Pharisee and the other man is a publican. The Pharisee is praying to God and he’s thanking God that he isn’t like other people then goes on to name the types of men that he’s not like, and even goes into telling God how often he fasts within a week’s time and how much he gives in tithing.

These all sound like great things that he’s doing, right? What is his heart posture right here though? What’s his ‘why’ right here?...

(The Pharisees wanted to be well known for the “righteous” things they did. They looked for the praise and validation of others for their “good works”. They believed that those works distinguished them from everyone else.)

And then we get to the publican (a tax collector) who, when he prayed, cried out to God and asked that He be merciful to him because he’s a sinner.

When reading how the publican prayed, the heart posture of the publican vs the Pharisee while praying was on two totally different spectrums. When you read it for yourself, it seems (at least to me) that the publican was just more genuine in his prayer.

It even says in the word that people would come to Him saying they did this and that in His name and so many wonderful works, but he will say to them that he never knew them (Matthew 7:22-23)!

It’s not by the things that we do, WE ARE NOT SAVED BY OUR WORKS ALONE!

We can’t do it on our own, we weren't even made to operate like that. We were made to depend on God, to rely on Him to complete His will and purpose for our lives.

I’m thankful that it's not based on the things that I within myself try to do! It’s a scary thing to think about if I had to rely solely on myself. I’m thankful for Jesus and the Holy Ghost!

2) Routinely

In today's times, routines are something that people hold close to them. They aid in helping people be consistent and disciplined in their tasks and goals.

But, let’s be honest, a person can get comfortable with the routines over time, especially when they start to see the types of results that they want. 

Now, I’m not knocking routines, but we don’t want to end up going through the motions and operating on autopilot.

Matthew 6:7 KJV says, “But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.”

We don’t want to get to a point where we’re having this empty, dry recitation of words to God just to adhere to a schedule.

I don’t know about you, but dry conversations are not my thing. If I don’t want to have a dry conversation, I don’t want to bring that to my Father either.

If we’re not careful, those dry prayers can lead to stale prayers in our daily lives, spacing out in the middle of prayer to think about whatever, like what’s going to be cooked for dinner later when there’s time later to think about that.

Those actions can lead a person to resist the Holy Ghost and distance themselves from God. Whether we meant for it to happen like that or not.

We shouldn’t prioritize routine, timing, and scheduling over allowing the Holy Ghost to move and lead us. 

That’s not to say that every time you pray, it has to be for 5 hours a day. I’m just saying that no matter if you’re praying for 5 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, or 5 hours, we should be present, be intentional, have our minds on God, and do what we are led to do.

God is the creator of time, so he can’t be bound by it. One day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years as one day (2 Peter 3:8).

Jesus told us to love the Lord our God with all our heart, all our soul, and all our mind (Matthew 22:37).

Putting everything into our relationship with God.

Having the right heart posture while praying, even in the midst of our routine, is the difference between just reciting the words to the Our Father prayer and praying with the understanding and revelation behind that prayer. There’s a reason why Jesus told us to pray like that. 

We want to make sure that we bring our “why” with us every time that we pray so that it doesn’t just become a checked box on the list of to-do’s for the day. 

3) To get what we want

This ‘why’ can be harmful to our prayer life and our relationship with God.

When a person is praying just to receive stuff they want, and that’s it, they’re essentially turning God into a genie or magician in their minds.

If that’s how a person is viewing Him, then what happens when they don’t receive what they’ve been praying for? Or they didn’t receive it when they expected it to? What happens when it doesn’t exactly come packaged the way a person wants it to?

Are they going to stop trusting in Him and believing in Him because they didn’t perceive what God was doing in their life?

What happens when the Lord says not yet because he wants to build something in them first so that they don’t misuse, abuse, or fumble what he’s going to bring to them?

If you don't quite get what I mean, here are a couple of examples.

A person may be praying for money but may not be responsible with it, may not understand what it means to not make it an idol, and doesn’t understand what it means to be a steward of God’s money.  

OR

A man or woman could be praying for their kingdom spouse but is lazy, selfish, impatient, doesn't like to share their space, doesn’t know what it means to not make a person an idol over God, or understands what a marriage from God looks like and only knows what the world understands it to be.

And so on and so on.

Not that this is the reason every time, but there are characteristics that the Lord wants to mold in us—things he wants us to understand before he gives us the thing.

That refiner’s fire comes to purify.

He cares about every aspect of our lives!

We have to allow God to be God. If we believe the word when it says that all things work for the good of those who love God and are called to his purpose, then we know that there is good in the wait; there is good in the molding, the building, and the correction. 

“For whom the LORD loveth he correcteth; Even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.” Proverb 3:12 KJV

The Lord loves us and is so gracious to give us the desires of our hearts, but we have to remember that Jesus is King; we serve Him and not the other way around. His will be done, not ours.

Not every desire that a man has is pure.

Impure desires could be coveting, greed, lust for someone else’s wife or husband, or anything that goes against the word and doesn’t honor God.

Did you know there is such a thing as praying wrong?

James 4:3 states, “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.” 

In regards to this scripture, the Greek definition of amiss means improperly or wrongly. Consume means to waste or squander.

So a person can ask for something and not get it because they ask wrong by wasting it on impure motives.  

If we really trust God and believe His word is truth, then we should believe that His ways and thoughts are higher than ours and that he is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think. And if we still find ourselves disappointed, upset, confused, or anything else, just pray about it. The Bible says that God won’t criticize us just for asking for wisdom (James 1:5). 

Let’s let Jesus take the wheel without being a backseat driver!

For those of us who may have found ourselves in these categories, the ‘why’ might not have started for these reasons, but maybe over time it transformed into this unknowingly or knowingly, but I know that it doesn’t have to stay this way.