Do
you ever have times when your life seems out of control? Do you ever
feel pressured and fear you are missing out on a certain quality of life
because your days are so busy?
Do
you worry that you are neglecting one or more areas of your life
because you are trying to fill numerous roles and meet endless
expectations? I’ve experienced that too.
Have you ever felt as if you are stuck in one place and are going
nowhere? Or worse yet, have you ever felt as if you are going backward?
Have
you had times when you’ve lost your vision for the future? Or have you
been frustrated because you never had a vision to begin with?
Have
you wondered whether you can actually move into the full purpose and
destiny God has for you? I, too, have felt all those things.
But God doesn’t want you to feel that way.
God
doesn’t want you to live the kind of life in which you are barely
hanging on. He doesn’t want you to merely eke out an existence, find a
way to cope with your misery or just get by.
He has more for you than that. He has a great purpose for your life.
But it won’t be fulfilled without prayer.
Do you hunger for a greater sense of the Lord’s presence in your life? Do you desire to know God in a deeper way?
Do you want to serve Him better and more completely? So do I.
The good news is that this is the way God wants you to feel.
God wants you to long for His presence. He wants you to find your fulfillment in Him and nothing else.
He
wants you to walk closely with Him and increase in faith and knowledge
of His Word. He wants you to put all your hopes and dreams in His hands
and look to Him to meet all your needs.
He wants you to totally depend on Him. That’s because when you do, He can move you into the purpose for which you were created.
But not without prayer.
If
we are not praying about our lives, we can too easily become people we
don’t want to be. We become women who hear the truth but don’t act in
faith to appropriate it for our lives.
We
spend valuable time grappling with doubt, fear, insecurity and
uncertainty. We end up going around in circles, always passing through
the same territory and coming back to the same problems, same
frustrations, same mistakes and same limitations. We become callused,
unforgiving, anxious, impatient or unteachable.
None
of this is what we want! We want to break out of any self-defeating
cycle of repeated patterns and habits and transcend ourselves, our
limitations and our circumstances.
We
want to be more than just survivors—even though there are times we are
grateful to be just that. But we want more. We want to be overcomers.
And
we want to be a part of something greater than ourselves. We want to be
connected to what God is doing on the earth in a way that bears fruit
for His kingdom. We want to abound in God’s love and blessings.
We
want to live life on purpose and with purpose. We want it all—all God
has for us. But we can never achieve that quality of life outside the
power of God. And then only as we pray.
We’ve
all had times when we feel completely powerless in the face of our
circumstances. We know we don’t have what it takes to attain any kind of
permanent transformation in our lives. Our best efforts to change
ourselves and our circumstances always fail to produce lasting results.
We
recognize our need for a power outside of and far greater than
ourselves. But there is only one power in the world great enough to help
us rise above ourselves and the difficult things we face and move us
into a life of purpose. That is the power of God.
Without
God’s power, we can’t transcend our limitations or get out of our ruts.
We can’t stand strong in the face of all that opposes us. We are doomed
to a life of spiritual mediocrity.
God
wants to deliver us from all that separates us from His best. He wants
to set us free from everything that prevents us from moving into all He
has for us. And He wants to use us to make a difference in His kingdom.
All this requires the power of His Holy Spirit.
How do we appropriate it? Only through prayer.
CREATED FOR A HIGH PURPOSE
Every one of us has a purpose in the Lord, but not all of us realize
it. And when we don’t have an accurate understanding of our identity, we
either strive to be something we are not or compare ourselves to others
and condemn ourselves for falling short.
When
we don’t become who we think we are supposed to be, it makes us
critical of ourselves. It causes us to be insecure, oversensitive,
frustrated and unfulfilled. It forces us to try too hard to make life
happen the way we think it is supposed to.
God
doesn’t want that for you. He wants you to have clear vision for your
life. He wants to reveal what your gifts and talents are and show you
how to best develop them and use them for His glory. That’s because He
knows you will never find total fulfillment until you are doing what He
created you to do.
Don’t think that if you haven’t moved into the purpose God has for you by now that it is too late. It’s never too late.
I
did everything late. I came to the Lord late. I got married late. I had
children late. And I didn’t start writing professionally until I was
more than 40. The greatest part of my ministry happened in my 50s. I
believe my best years are ahead.
Trust
me, if you are still breathing, God has a purpose for you, and it is
good. But God won’t move you into the big things He has for you to do
unless you have proven faithful in the small things He has given you. So
if you are doing what you deem to be small things right now, rejoice!
God is getting you ready for the big things ahead.
Although
it may often feel like it, there is never a time when nothing is
happening in your life. That’s because whether you realize it or not,
you are never standing still. You are either going forward or you’re
sliding back.
In order to
keep moving forward, you need to become more and more passionate about
God. You need to spend quality time with the lover of your soul every
day.
I don’t want any of us
to wake up one morning and realize we didn’t lay a good foundation in
the things of God or didn’t protect the foundation we had with prayer.
This is not about getting things from God, although He has much He wants
to give to us.
It’s about
getting into God and allowing Him to get into us. It’s about letting Him
make us complete. This is about a deep, intimate relationship with God
and the wholeness that will be worked in us because of it.
God
wants us to want Him. And when we realize that it’s Him we want, it
frees us to identify the longings, loneliness, frustration and emptiness
inside us as our signal that we need to draw near to God with open arms
and ask Him to fill us with more of Himself. It’s in that kind of
relationship that we will find our purpose.
But
this deep and intimate relationship with God that we all desire and
can’t live without doesn’t just happen. It must be sought after, prayed
for, nurtured, treasured and protected.
THE FUTURE GOD HAS FOR YOU
Though God has a plan for your future that is good, remember that the
devil has one too—and it’s not good. But the devil’s plan for you cannot
succeed as long as you are walking with God, living in obedience to His
ways, worshiping only Him, standing strong in His Word and praying
without ceasing.
When you
live this way, according to God’s Word and by the power of His Holy
Spirit, you can trust that you are in the right place at the right time
and that the Lord is working His perfect will in your life. You can
trust that He is moving you into the life of purpose He has for you.
So
don’t give up if you are not seeing all you want in response to your
prayers. You will! Just keep on doing what’s right and refuse to give
way to discouragement if things don’t happen as fast as you would like
them to. They seldom do.
And don’t be concerned about your future. God wants you to be concerned with Him, because He is your future.
If
you find yourself fearing that your future won’t ever be any different
than it is at this moment, please know the truth is quite the opposite.
It’s at these very times, when you feel as if you’re not getting
anywhere or you’re missing the future God has for you, that God is
actually preparing you for your future.
And
when the time is right, He will undoubtedly do a very quick work.
Though it’s good to set goals, don’t look so far into the future that
you become overwhelmed by it.
Look
to the Lord instead. Draw close to God and do what He asks you to do,
and you will see God’s purpose for you become manifest in your life.
More
than at any other time in history, believing women are being given an
open door to become all they were created to be. They are moving out in
different areas of expertise and ministry and making an important
difference in the lives of those whom God puts in their realm of
influence.
God is looking
for women who will be committed to living His way and stepping into the
purposes He has for their lives. He wants women who are willing to
sacrifice themselves for His kingdom. Women who say, “Not my will, but
Yours be done, Lord.” He wants praying women who are led by the Spirit,
who will do what it takes to be equipped and ready when He opens the
doors of opportunity for them.
You
are one of those women. In order to move into the purpose and future
God has for you, talk to Him about it every day. Say, “Lord, show me
clearly what the gifts and talents are that You have placed in me. Help
me to grow in them and enable me to use them according to Your will and
for Your glory. Lead me in the way I should go as I move into the future
You have for me.” When you do, God will “grant you according to your
heart’s desire, and fulfill all your purpose” (Ps. 20:4, NKJV).
Stormie Omartian is the author of The Power of a Praying Woman, from which this article is adapted. Published by Harvest House.
