Things to Ask God For

I recently heard this as part of a message on Matthew 7, and I think it is worth sharing. 

As I've focused afresh on the importance of growing where I am planted, and using the time God has given me carefully, this fits in well. The reason it fits in well is that both of those things just mentioned require living intentionally where God has physically has us, doing the work He has set before us to do. 

For me, it includes interacting the most with people in my actual town, rather than strangers in Facebook groups who have similar hobbies. It involves managing my home and time with things outside my 4 walls carefully, paying attention to how my life impacts those who live with me here. I've recently deleted all of the social apps on my phone, and am leaving my phone out of ear shot a lot more often. I'm tired of it interrupting my thoughts and daily flow; something I've unfortunately grown very accustomed to. It is a hard habit to break. Likewise, I've hibernated/closed the couple of social accounts I've had now that my work schedule is sufficiently full. Finally, I've cut out a bartering arrangement I had for the foreseeable future, realizing while it is something I really enjoy, it can't rise to the "most important thing right now" list. 

Whenever it seems we do not have enough time to do the things we'd like to do or need to do, it is a wise to see how much screen time we're allowing and how much things outside our daily life we're giving time to. I think it steals so much value adding time to read tons on the Internet, or glaze over and scroll, scroll, scroll.....and life goes too fast, and we get used to passively using the Internet/phones so easily. It numbs us and wastes hours we will never recover. Youth goes too fast...take it from someone past the half-century mark. One day you are saying you don't want to do an activity and the next, you are afraid to do it so you don't hurt yourself....

My suggestion is to pray for God to show you what and who to prioritize each day. Look around and pour into those God has laid on your heart, that you can manage well with the responsibilities He's made clear are yours alone. Read books more than what is online...one day your eyes will be tired faster, vision will not just be short or far-sighted, there will be other factors that make reading more difficult. It is like writing letters by hand. If you don't do it, you lose the skill quickly. I digress...

Things to ask God for.....

(Reflection: How is your prayer life? Ask God to improve it and to show you to pray for the right things if it is less than stellar.)

Here's the list that God surely wants to answer for His beloved children:

1. For courage confronting critical attitudes. Judgments we make should come only from spiritual intentions. We are not the standard bearer of Christianity. We should let our standards motivate us to be more holy, not to measure others. 

2. Ask God to help us be more authentic, and show us our hypocrisy. 

3. Pray that God will show us who we genuinely are. 

4. Pray for God to give us humility, and to see Him as our loving Father. 

Remember, the Holy Spirit is a good gift. God says He will give us every good and perfect gift. Ask God to help you be sensitive to the Holy Spirit and really listen to Him. May we remove the log from our own eye so we can see clearly to remove the splinter from the eyes of those He's burdened us to lovingly correct.