How do we pray? I often ask God to make me the woman, wife, mother, and teacher He wants me to be, but I must confess that I am not always WORKING toward being those things. I have, a few times in my life, prayed David’s prayer:
Psalm 139:23-24: “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
THAT is a scary prayer. Not that I think God doesn’t search my heart already — I know He does. 1Samuel 16:7b says, “…for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart,” and John 2:24-25 says, “But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man.”
There are many other passages and verses in scripture that address surrender to God and integrity of the heart. All of them are convicting, and all of them are to be used by us to “work out [our] own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12b). At the end of this blog are several such verses and passages.
Years ago, when I was a young Christian and a young mother, my pastor’s wife and Sunday school teacher, Debbie Lavender, introduced me to a “palms-up prayer” through our Sunday school materials. This is something I’ve never forgotten and has become powerful in my life, especially in the times when I ignore what God’s trying to show or tell me and trying to get things done in my own control.
When praying a “palms-up prayer,” I turn my palms up to represent my total surrender of all that I carry and my total acceptance of all God chooses to give me. It’s a deeply personal conversation with God, and much of my time in these prayers is spent in silence on my part. This kind of praying takes all of my courage, mainly because I’m afraid of giving up control in my life. Giving up control is really more a process of realizing I never had it in the first place. This is where complete honesty with God and with myself is so important — it’s why people who know me know I’m always quoting the Serenity Prayer:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change (anything that isn’t my own behavior),
The courage to change the things I can (my own behavior),
And the wisdom to know the difference.
I am still working on surrendering all areas of my life to God, and in some things, I’m sure I’m deceiving myself: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). My challenge to you, Christian women, is to consider giving up control in your lives to God. Quit trying to control your circumstances, your family, your church, or your friends. Don’t seek to make other people and situations conform to your idea of what they should be. If you say you want God’s will for your life and then try to control every outcome of every situation, you don’t really want His will. God’s will for us is so much more than any plan or scheme we can conceive: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9).
Self-examination is essential if we are to become the women God wants us to be, and that self-examination must be done in comparison to the standards God gives us in His Word. 1Corinthians 11:31-32 says, “For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.” I don’t know about you, but I would rather judge myself and bring myself into subjection to God’s instruction than to be brought into subjection through God’s chastening.
I hope this blog is a tool that will help us all to bring every area of our lives under the Lordship of Jesus Christ for His glory and honor and praise,
Until next time,
Teresa
Additional Verses:
Job 31:6-8 Let me be weighed in an even balance, that God may know mine integrity. (7) If my step hath turned out of the way, and mine heart walked after mine eyes, and if any blot hath cleaved to mine hands; (8) Then let me sow, and let another eat; yea, let my offspring be rooted out.
Psalm 7:8 The LORD shall judge the people: judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness, and according to mine integrity that is in me.
Psalm 26:1-2 A Psalm of David. Judge me, O LORD; for I have walked in mine integrity: I have trusted also in the LORD; therefore I shall not slide. (2) Examine me, O LORD, and prove me; try my reins and my heart.
Proverbs 11:2-3 When pride cometh, then cometh shame: but with the lowly is wisdom. (3) The integrity of the upright shall guide them: but the perverseness of transgressors shall destroy them.
Proverbs 19:1 Better is the poor that walketh in his integrity, than he that is perverse in his lips, and is a fool.
Proverbs 20:7 The just man walketh in his integrity: his children are blessed after him.
James 4:7-8 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. (8) Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.
1Peter 5:6-7 Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: (7) Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.
