Month 1 has given me ample time to think, pray, and listen for God’s voice. And if you read my last blog, you know there was a big lesson to be learned through all the hard work: that sometimes God calls us to serve and not to minister.
Through all the work, the Lord reprioritized my desires. Although I think it’ll be hard to write out everything that the Holy Spirit’s been doing in me, I hope you catch a glimpse of what I’ve been experiencing.
For some reason, I’ve always shied away from bold prayers. I’ve always felt that I had to earn the opportunity to make big requests to God, to ask Him to show up and move in big ways.. If I’m being honest with myself, I think the two main reasons for that are sometimes I doubt God and other times I think that he’ll come through on those prayers and that scares me.
The funny thing is God keeps bringing me back to James 1:1-5 when he writes about praying to God for wisdom but asking in faith. Otherwise, we become like the waves of the sea, tossed by the wind. Also, in chapter 5 when he comments on Elijah’s prayer for no rain saying, “the prayer of a righteous man has great power as it is working.”
Since I’ve been on the field, God has given me the courage to pray dangerous prayers; things that I’ve never prayed for, asking God to let the Gospel pervade all of Asia. Asking him to burden my heart for the souls bound for Hell in the coming countries; to deepen my love for scripture. He’s given me the audacity to open myself up for his Spirit to minister to my soul.
Because of that, he’s revealed things that I need to work on. I constantly ask God to give me clarity on my future, to show me what I’m good at, or to give me a direction to go in after the race. And those are good prayers. But I’ve been praying them out of fear that if I don’t pray them enough times that he won’t answer. In reality, I’m looking for God to give me a stepping-stone that I can stand on so that I don’t have to rest in Him, so that I don’t have to trust him as much. Through that, he’s teaching me to just pray for more of him.
Lately, I’ve been journaling my prayers and as I look back I see how the Lord has been changing my prayers from being self-focused to Holy Spirit-focused. I see how dangerous my prayers are becoming. On September 19th I wrote, “I ask you Holy Spirit to align my desires with yours. Set my heart in tune with yours.” And then on the 20th, “Father, I ask that you would give me the desires of YOUR heart . . . stir up my affections for you. Give me a deeper love for the Gospel so that it wouldn’t just be on my lips but in my heart!” And on the 24th, “Fill my heart with your word and your love!”
Crazy things happen when we ask the Holy Spirit to move in our hearts. Those are dangerous prayers. Not because of what I’m asking God to do FOR me or THROUGH me but because of what I’m asking God to do IN me.
In Christ,
Matt Herrington
