CHANGE "HIM"

" . . .  a wife requested prayer for her husband. She painted a rather sordid picture of him, and I gathered that she wanted us to pray that God would punish him.

. . . . .If we hadn't prayed the Scripture, we would have prayed the wife's frustration and anger instead of the nature of God . . . "

Judson Cornwall
Praying The Scriptures
Creation House
p.130

A friend and I carry totally different memories of our mothers. If someone hurt my friend, my friend's mother berated her own daughter and gave the offender every excuse for causing the hurt.

If I was hurt or frustrated, I called Mom. She'd get mad along with me.

God will listen; and He will comfort. But he won't be like either of our mothers. He loves, unconditionally, the offended and the offender. When I struggle to know how to pray and don't know appropriate Scriptures to do so, one way I can always pray for an offender, an enemy . . .  a President, congressman, or boss that irritates every fiber of my being is, "God, Thy will be done."

Or . . . as I have prayed in the past, "God, change him or change me." ( I always suspect the need will require God to change both.)

This year, I'm praying that God will teach me how to pray.

EverGrowing,
Lonnie