Sorting Our Prayers
As the mother of six children, I spent a great deal of time doing laundry over the years. One thing I learned fairly early on is that if the laundry is sorted into appropriate hampers, it didn’t take long to throw a load in the washer. Sorting was key and so my children were taught from a very young age how to sort their dirty clothes. Sorting is a useful skill whether doing laundry, putting up toys or unloading the dishwasher.
Today as I was reading the Word, I came across Mark 10:27, “With men it is impossible, but not with God; for with God all things are possible.” There are very similar verses to this is Genesis, Luke, Jeremiah, and Matthew. As I read this verse, I wondered, “Do I really believe this, or have I set up some hampers in my prayer life? As I am confronted with prayer needs and circumstances in my life, do I first sort them logically into the hampers, Possible and Impossible. Do I use my past experiences and what I have seen God do to decide what hamper to put them in? Do I look at current circumstances and my history with God and then do the sorting? I wonder if some of us look at our faithfulness to God in our daily walk and then sort our prayers into Worthy and Unworthy. Maybe we even look at the answers to previous prayers and decide whether our current prayer will go in the hamper labeled Heard or Unheard.
Prayer is one of the most rewarding and also one of the most challenging aspects to this Christian walk. We can get discouraged and wonder if God hears us or if we are worthy for God to listen to us. We might wonder since God didn’t seem to answer last time, will he answer this time. Can He even do anything in this circumstance? Has He forgotten me? These questions can paralyze us to the point we can’t even pray. Our prayers never really get prayed because we are trying to sort them. Before long, our prayer life can become cluttered with doubt, unbelief, discouragement, and a bunch of unprayed prayers.
Not wanting to take this wash analogy too far, but do you know how most of my adult children do laundry now? You guessed it. They grab up everything that is dirty and just throw all of it into the washer at once. No sorting! They just trust it will all come out okay in the laundry. I think that same type of simple faith, might help us to get praying again. Lord, I don’t know how any of this is going to come out and I sure don’t understand what needs to be done, but I trust you and I give it to you.
For with God nothing will be impossible. Luke 1:37 NKJV