Down to the Heart of It

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not My ways.” This is the Lord’s declaration. “For as heaven is higher than earth, so My ways are higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.’” (Isaiah 55:8-9)
 

Kids have a tendency to think that material items fix everything. Ice cream fixes sadness, a game fixes boredom, and a toy makes you happy.

Most everyone grows out of this stage and realizes that material things can’t actually buy you happiness, but even as adults, we often have no idea what we really need. We’re all just kids trying to find small solutions to big problems.  

We don’t know what to ask for as we should, and sometimes the best we can do is to ask the Lord to intercede for us when we don’t know what to pray for. As we believe and trust that God will do a work in our lives as He did for Jabez, we can’t be so focused on something that we want to receive from God that we care more about the blessing than we do about Him. Regardless of whether or not what we want is material, it doesn’t matter. If we want the present more than the Giver, then it’s all for nothing.

 When a child asks for a gift, it’s not much of a surprise because they don’t understand yet that materials can’t give your life meaning—they’re just things. But if a child were to ask their parents to speak a word of value and truth over their life, the entire perception is changed.

When we ask God to bless us, are we only asking so that we get what we want, or do we genuinely seek Him so that we are nearer to Him? What we ask from Him is often too small for what He has planned. We pray too small. We think too small. You could pray for a million dollars, but that would still be too small because money is nowhere near as valuable as we’d like to think. Our perception of value is different from God’s, and what He has is always better. It's always more.  

When we pray for blessings, for change, for more out of our lives, let us pray with the intent to be near His heart—that it wouldn’t matter what He’s holding in His hands, only what’s in His heart.