I don’t know if you feel this way but sometimes I feel pretty sure that I can give God a to-do list. I am a very opiniated person and I don’t really try to hide that. Even when it comes to God I will sometimes assume that I know exactly what he needs to do in a given situation. As I’m sure you could probably imagine, I get frustrated a lot of the time. As crazy as I’m sure it sounds, it turns out that God doesn’t agree with me most of the time. He has made it very clear over the years that his timing and his ways far exceed anything that I could possibly comprehend.

This realization has created a space in my prayer life that hasn’t always been there. I find that when I am spending time with God, there are a lot of times when I can’t even think of what to ask him. I may think I need one thing in a situation, but I may actually need something else. I may think that a friend needs something specific to happen but it may be the case that they need something entirely different to happen. I know that we all face problems and that there are a lot of problems in the world at large. That being said, I’m certain that God sees this world and the problems in it through a very different lens than the ones we look through.

So a lot of times I simply don’t know what to pray for. This doesn’t stop me from asking for things but when I ask for certain things, I guess I don’t take my requests quite as seriously as I used to. I’m not saying that God won’t answer specific prayers but I am saying that we should not assume that God thinks the same way that we think. Isaiah 55:8-9 says, “8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” This means when we go before God we should take him a lot more seriously and ourselves a lot less seriously.

I think it is advisable to simply pray that God would do whatever he wants to do because whatever he wants to do is right on the money. I do think that we should spend time trying to discover who God is but we should never assume that we have him figured out. If you feel that a specific prayer request lines up with who you believe God to be, I would say go for it and pray for that to happen. I just want to be transparent with you guys and let you know that there are many times I don’t know what to pray for. I don’t know what needs to happen all the time. I don’t know how to fix every situation. I don’t know which direction to take at every moment. I don’t know what character trait I may be lacking in the most. I think this is ok.

I am thankful that there is a very real God on a very real throne who knows all the stuff that I don’t know. I’m also thankful that he is going to continue to do the right thing and be that perfect God even in the times when I feel totally lost. Our world seems to communicate the message that you need to have it all figured out all the time but this message really just creates stress and anxiety. There is a lot that we don’t know and that’s ok as long as we are honest about it. God is the one who created us and as we study Scripture I believe we will find that he has a track record of using messed up and ordinary people to change the world.