YOU GET WHAT YOU PRAY FOR

If you’re anything like me, praying isn’t usually number one on my list of ways to create Relationship.
 
I talk all the time, but I feel like I never really know what I’m supposed to say to God, if you know what I mean. You hear people in church who use words like “thou art,” and “Holy Father” and you can’t even take yourself seriously when you hear it in your own head.

Don’t get me wrong, there is no right or wrong way to pray. If super formal communication is how you feel connected, then by all means, keep doing you. My point is that no matter how you do pray, it’s incredibly important that you do.
 
While God does not keep score, I tend to do so.
 
This past year, I started a “prayers” note on my iPhone. Whenever I feel like a threw a Hail Mary up to the literal heavens, I write it down in my notes to see where it landed, and folks, it has been life changing.
 
I would write things down and completely forget about them, and most of the time, I would forget that I even had the notes on my phone. What usually ends up happening is I’m going through my notes looking for my most current grocery list and BOOM all my prayers are written down.
 
And I’m not kidding you, each time I recheck the note, another prayer has been answered. Somethings are small, like one-time God helped me pull of a surprise for a friend, but some of them are big like the fact that I’m living in a house right now.
 
There is no better way to reassure your own faith then to be behind the scenes as God moves mountains.
 
But the even funnier thing, is that sometimes prayers do not get answered in the way you would expect.
 
For example, I really love singing. I had a blast getting to lead worship back when I was in college, but the church we go to now is currently just too big. So, I’d never given singing another thought.
 
Then a couple of weeks ago, Luke’s hometown church reached out and said they were looking for people to join the worship team they were going to start up. I immediately reached out and said I was interested.
 
As it turns out, the guy who was going to be leading the new team, was from my home town, went to my home town church, and helped start the campus ministry where I had fell in love with leading worship in the first place, and finally was leading worship in my husband’s middle-of-no-where-small-town-Iowa. What are the odds of that my friends.
 
And maybe this story doesn’t blow you away, maybe you think that something like that shouldn’t matter as much as it did to me. If that’s the case, come have coffee with me sometime and let me tell you the hundreds of stories I could tell about Hail Mary passes that became touchdowns (Did you like my sports pun? ;) ).
 
My mind was absolutely blown. The intricacy and attention to detail that God uses to tell the story of our lives will never not be amazing.
 
My point is, prayers matter. They matter because they show that you’re willing to trust. They show that you’re willing to listen, and they show that you know God’s going to show up.
 
I don’t believe in things like coincidences. I get this super weird feeling in my chest when what other people would consider “coincidences” happen to me. It’s not just by happenstance, it’s on purpose, and that purpose is for you and me.
 
So I don’t care how you pray. I don’t care if you write it down. I don’t care if you speak authentic Hebrew up to Heaven.
 
Pray for big things and for small things and everything in between and watch the Lord move mountains for you in ways you couldn’t write yourself.