Turning prayers of provision to prayers for guidance

​It can be frustrating, feeling like I don't have what I need to go where I need to go. I've discovered that frustration often comes from me thinking I need to go places I really don't need to go.

I've said many prayers in which I've asked God to provide me a way to go where I've decided I need to go. When often, the most powerful prayer is to ask God where he wants me to go with what I already have.

We are often good at asking God for what we need to get where we need to go without ever stopping to ask God, where do I need to go?

That often creates a great conflict of interest. When where I think I need to go and where God needs me to go are not in great alignment, we will often feel greatly unprovided for.

I have to confess, it's in that great conflict of interest that I have turned away from God at times in my life. When you feel unprovided for you can get to feeling like the provider doesn't hear you.

Or worse, that the provider hears you and is ignoring you, that the provider hears you and is ignoring you because the provider doesn't care for you.

I have deeply committed the last few years to have prayers that ask God to show me more than they ask God to give to me. It has not been easy. There are still many days I feel like I am lacking, but still, most days I feel like I'm going in the right direction.

Yesterday, I went to my mailbox. I realized I hadn't been there this week. As I sorted through the stack of mail, a stack that is almost always junk mail, I found myself holding a hand addressed envelope. Hand addressed envelopes are always mysterious yet exciting these days.

When in my excitement I opened it, I discovered a check. It was payment for speaking at an event I'd forgotten I was getting paid for speaking at.

I can't overstate how timely this check was. Timely for two reasons.

One, it eased a burden a bit.

Two, and most important, it was a very clear affirmation from God that if I will keep asking for his guidance, he will keep providing in ways I don't ask for and certainly don't see coming.

God is a great provider. He always has been. It's just sometimes we forget that what he provides best, what he wants to provide most, is guidance.

God knows the best path for us. It's when we forget to ask God about that path or follow it that we feel most forgotten.

If you feel like you don't have what you need to get where you need to go today, consider the possibility that you don't need to go where you think you do.

And then consider asking God for an alternative path.

Turning our prayers from prayers of provision to prayers of guidance; it can make all the difference in the world.