Dangers of Living Life in the Fast Lane

It is a well known fact to those who frequently use the Tampa International Airport that there are millions of ways to come and go from the airport. Even though it may seem that "all roads lead to Rome" or in this case the airport; all roads do NOT lead to home. One careless mistake can send a person clear across the Howard Franklin Bridge...

...a 10 mile (16 km) mistake!
 After twelve years of driving and hundreds of trips to the airport I recently made this mistake for the first time. Following a hectic briefing on child care for their four children, the parents waved us goodbye at the airport drop-off. As we left the airport my head began to whirl as I tried to recall the scheduled ballet lessons, sports practices, music lessons and school work. Priding myself on my multitasking skills I really thought I could find their house...WITHOUT the GPS. After all the house was only about ten minutes from the airport!

A Forgetful Heart is an Ungrateful Heart

Things weren't going my way. Driving alone in the car I desperately began to pray, "God, what are you doing? What am I doing wrong?" It was more of a frustrated plea to God as I questioned His timing and motive.

You're probably thinking Laurie, you talked to God that way? Yes, but God already knew my frustration and the thoughts that were running through my head. By expressing it to Him I was directing my "out of tune" heart back to the Master Musician who could then tune me back to Truth.

Then Sings my Soul!

Prayer and praise are to very important parts of a Christian’s devotional life.  Have you even been so burdened or overwhelmed by your circumstances that you didn’t know how to pray or what to ask for?  On the other hand, have you ever been so excited and thankful for answered prayer that it was hard to sit still and pray?  Singing is a way to express each of these emotions in a way that is worshipful to God. God loves to hear the praise of His people, and when you pray back His Word to him, it is a sweet-smelling sacrifice of praise to Him.   Psalm 92:1 says, “It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord and to sing praises unto thy name, O most high.”

God-Centered Prayer

How many of us would love to have confidence when we pray that God hears us, and not only that He hears us, but that we know that we are going to have the things that we have asked? God says that we can have this unwavering faith in His Word:

“This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the request that we have of Him” (1 John 5:14-15)

The key to this faith is God-centered prayer. If prayer is not God-centered then we have no business trying to muster up faith, positive thinking, and expectation that God will give what we have asked. This attitude will only produce disillusionment and discouragement because we don't see God doing what we want. Prayer must be built on the solid foundation of the will of God. How may I know the will of God? God's revealed Word contains his complete and perfect will for us and has everything that we need to live a life of godliness. (2 Tim.3:16, 2 Pet.1:3)  This is God-centered prayer.  God's Word is the authority of our prayers: not us.

What is the opposite of God-centered prayer? Man-centered prayer. We live in a society where even Christians live and pray in a very self-centered way. We have a desire or a motive, so we pray expecting God to grant our request when we have not even the first clue what God has to say about our request in his Word. Then, we go about boasting and blaspheming the name of God when we say that we feel like God is leading us to do or ask for something without any clear basis for our request in His Word. We make ourselves out to be God and expect Him to act like our puppet.  We blaspheme the name of God to the people who are watching by making Him to be a liar because he does not do the things we ask. We ask with wrong self made motives to consume it on our lust. (James 4:2-3)

    

If we pray on the basis of His Word and His authority then we can pray with absolute confidence that we are going to have the things that we ask of him. The result is that God is glorified because he has answered our prayers and His Word has come alive!!!

 When I was single and unmarried I was urged to pray, expecting with confidence, for a husband.  I liked the idea very much and tried to think positively and pray this way and talk to others about my faith in God giving me a husband.  But deep inside I lacked confidence because this was just a desire of mine and I had nothing concrete in Scripture to base my request on, or to suppose that God was going to answer it. God showed me through His Word that His ultimate desire for my life is for me to know Him. The request for me to know Christ was definitely something I knew He wanted for my life. So I prayed in surrender, “Lord God, if I can know you better by being single, then I want to be single and if I can know you better being married then I want to be married.” In just a few weeks after praying that prayer God led me to my husband Michael.  Then the process began of knowing Christ even better through marriage.  God did not give me a husband because I claimed a promise that He would.  As much as I wanted to find one in Scripture, I could not.  But He gave me the desire of my heart because I delighted in Him.  I was willing to know Him better, no matter what that looked like.

-Christina (Jalbert) Priest

 Christina (Jalbert) Priest is 28-years-old, the wife of a wonderful man of God, Michael, and the mother of two adorable boys, Josiah and Noah. Chrissie inspired A Passion for Jesus ministries into existence and has continued to encouraged Christians of all ages to love God with all their heart.