Last week, I injured my back during a particularly difficult workout.\u00a0 The injury wasn\u2019t significant and, truthfully, other than a quick visit to a chiropractor, didn\u2019t even require any medical attention.\u00a0 And yet, it lingered and bothered and impeded.\u00a0 Small movements were just painful enough to remind me that I wasn\u2019t quite operating at one hundred percent.\u00a0 I knew eventually it would resolve so I prepared myself for a few irritating days of discomfort.<\/p>\n
But lying in bed a couple days later, I was having a difficult time getting comfortable and falling asleep.\u00a0 So I prayed.\u00a0 Simple, straightforward, direct.\u00a0 \u201cDear God, please heal my back.\u201d\u00a0 I didn\u2019t offer admirable reasons or arguments.\u00a0 I just asked for what I needed.\u00a0 The funny thing is that, as I prayed, I had absolutely no inclination to believe that God would answer my prayer.\u00a0 It\u2019s not that I didn\u2019t believe He could.\u00a0 I had no doubt that He could speak the word and I would wake up new.\u00a0 But, admittedly, there was no part of me that actually believed He would.\u00a0 I guess, looking back, I figured that my request was insignificant and therefore unworthy.\u00a0 Furthermore, there were so many requests I had offered up in the past, so many needs much greater than this that had resulted in God\u2019s silence.\u00a0 There were far worthier supplications and petitions that had gone unanswered.\u00a0 So I figured that a mildly sore back certainly wouldn\u2019t make God\u2019s agenda.<\/p>\n
And then something strange happened.\u00a0 I woke up the next morning and my back was completely better.\u00a0 Not less sore, not reduced to a dull ache, but completely better.\u00a0 And it threw me for a loop.\u00a0 Suddenly, I had to answer for my disbelief, for my doubt.\u00a0 But there were no answers that seemed acceptable.\u00a0 The bottom line is that I had put God in a box of my own assumptions and, like He always seems to do, He shattered it.\u00a0 Just when I thought I had an aspect of Him figured out, He broke through my arrogance and presumption and revealed Himself to be nothing like I thought.\u00a0 God has a way of doing that and every time He does, I find myself a bit more enamored, a bit more intrigued, a bit more in love with Him.\u00a0 I love that I have a God who doesn\u2019t operate by my standards or expectations.\u00a0 I love that I have a God whose ways are so far out of my realm of reason and understanding.\u00a0 I love that I have a God who surprises me over and over.<\/p>\n
But there was another lesson to be had through my experience.\u00a0 Something about prayer just wouldn\u2019t leave me alone.\u00a0 I think that for most of my life, I have viewed prayer as a means to communicate with the heavenly Father.\u00a0 I have seen it as a vehicle to carry my requests, my concerns, my needs.\u00a0 And, without a doubt, it is that.\u00a0 But I think it is also so much more.\u00a0 It occurred to me that as I was laying in bed praying for healing, my prayer was an admission of my position.\u00a0 Beyond an entreaty, it was a recognition that there was something I needed that I had no way of attaining.\u00a0 What I needed, what I wanted, was out of my reach.\u00a0 I did not possess the capacity to help myself.\u00a0 But there was, there is, someone who does have the ability to give me what I need.\u00a0 And so I discovered that perhaps my prayer had little to do with expressing my needs but everything to do with expressing my inability and frailty.\u00a0 When we pray, we are acknowledging that we are incapable, that we are finite and limited.\u00a0 When we pray, we are accepting that there are changes we long for that are beyond our reach, beyond our human achievement.\u00a0 And when we pray, with head bowed, our hearts are looking up to the one who is more than capable.\u00a0 By recognizing our own position, we also recognize God\u2019s position.\u00a0 In admitting what we cannot provide, we humbly accept what God can provide.<\/p>\n
Prayer can transform, prayer can heal, prayer can alter circumstances and mold hearts.\u00a0 Prayer is so much more powerful than verbalizing what we need.\u00a0 Prayer has the power, with every word, to remind us of who we are and, more importantly, who God is. Prayer has the amazing ability to put us in our place.\u00a0 And when we are in our place, I believe our vision is so much clearer.\u00a0 When we are aware of our own inadequacies, we are free to throw off our pride, our presumptions and our misbeliefs.\u00a0 And when that happens, we begin to see with clearer vision that, just as Paul says in Ephesians 3:20, the God of the universe \u201cis able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
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