On praying

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law." (Galatians 5:22-23)

Our guest speaker yesterday cast a vision for the new community-based student ministry to be started in our area, targeting primarily unchurched kids. It will be a chapter of the LifeBridge ministry in Wolfboro, New Hampshire. The speaker commented at one point about the need for patience with some of the kids, which sparked a thought which I developed a bit in my journal. I include some of that here.

When we pray for patience, are we really focusing on ourselves and not on what God wants to accomplish in our lives? Patience is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit's work in our lives, and I suppose we should always purpose to produce such fruit. But desire, effort, willpower--and prayer--don't produce such fruit. The Spirit does.

We typically pray for patience in the context of a trying situation, whether from circumstances or another person. It's in the middle of such a trying time we breathe the prayer: "God, give me patience." Why do we ask for it? If we're honest with ourselves, we want to endure the situation until everything goes back to "normal," when we are again comfortable, perhaps even in control again.

Instead of asking God for patience--how often do we pray for the other fruit?--which comes naturally from God's work, perhaps we should pray for open eyes and a soft heart to learn the wisdom God has for us in the middle of the situation. What can we learn from it or from the person we're dealing with? What can I learn about God? About me? "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all men generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him." (James 1:5)

I'm not suggesting we never pray to avoid things such as sin, temptation, etc. But we live in a broken, sinful world, among broken, sinful people. And guess what? We are broken, sinful people! So if the "state of the union" is such, we will always, in the course of events, run into situations that arise from the consequences of that brokenness and sin.

Maybe we should focus less on praying the fruit out of the ground, and instead make sure we're doing our part to keep the ground fertile for growth to occur.

Lord, may I be a diligent husband of my heart-soil.
May I focus my efforts on the work of self-care so that my heart becomes the fertile ground where Your Spirit may plant and grow and produce good fruit.
May I stop wasting time praying for a result that will come naturally, but requires time and work (mine and Yours) to produce.
May I focus on Your work, not out of performance, "works," duty or obligation. But out of Your power which works in me.
May my prayer remain aligned with Your purposes and not my sinful desires.
Amen.