Last night I was meeting with a buddy. We're going through D. Marin Lloyd Jones's book Spiritual Depression. The first chapter is so good! Super convicting. We both underlined a ton of stuff! Anyways, as we were talking about it and applying it to our lives I had a bit of a light bulb moment 💡. Those times when something clicks for you. I feel like it's always something basic and simple, but you never understood it until that moment, even if you may have heard it before or had teaching on it.
We were talking about the argument people make that we should not pray for small things because God can’t be bothered or is not interested in them. My friend share the story of someone praying for the air in their tire as they tried to make it to an air pump with a tire losing air. The enemy quickly whispers in our ear, "God doesn't care about the air in your tire." We both, however, were agreeing that God cares about the small things in our lives and how that is clear in Scripture (Matt. 10:29-31).
The Bible repeats things to show emphasis. It occurred to me that Scripture shows God continually reaching out to be in relationship with us (Jer. 31:33; *see list at bottom), so much so that he sent his own son to die for us that we might live through him, (1 John 4:9) to make peace with us (Rom. 5:1) so that we could have a relationship with him (John 17:3)! In light of this we should pray to him about everything, knowing that God is always there reaching out to us wanting to be in relationship with us.
The implications of this are that God wants us to talk to him about everything! Yes, even all of the small things. So pray about it all!
That reality should floor us daily but we get so introspective and only see and look at the immediate things in our lives that we lose sight of this awesome reality, The creator of the universe wants to be in relationship with us and reached down into history with Christ and made a way for that to be possible though we are sinners. We both agreed that having regular daily intake of Scripture can help remind us of these truths.
So, if you hear someone dismissing the idea of praying about small stuff, reorient their thinking in this way. Jesus came that we would have peace with God and be in relationship with him. God made that happen so he could be our God and we could be his people. So be his people and pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17) all day long about everything! Include God in everything! This is not working on praying more, it is inviting God into our every moment.
* Genesis 17:7-8; Exodus 29:45; Leviticus 26:45; Ezekiel 14:11; Zechariah 8:8; 2 Corinthians 6:16; Hebrews 8:10; Jeremiah 32:38; Ezekiel 11:20; Ezekiel 37:23; Jeremiah 7:23; Jeremiah 31:33; Ezekiel 37:27; Jeremiah 31:1; Revelation 21:3; Exodus 6:7; Leviticus 26:12; Revelation 21:7; Jeremiah 11:4; Jeremiah 30:22; Ezekiel 36:28; Psalm 50:7; Psalm 81:10; Isaiah 41:10; Ezekiel 34:31; Exodus 20:2; Isaiah 41:13; Isaiah 43:3; Ezekiel 20:5; Ezekiel 20:7; Ezekiel 20:19; Ezekiel 20:20; Zechariah 10:6; Leviticus 11:45; Leviticus 22:33; Leviticus 25:38; Numbers 15:41; Ezekiel 34:24; Hosea 12:9; Hosea 13:4; Joel 2:27; Joel 3:17; et al. bro
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