Daily Delight
Last year, my parents gave me a $50 gift card to the bookstore and offered to babysit my kids while I spent it. I do not think they were prepared for how many hours I would spend wandering up and down the aisles, sniffing the books, and relishing the fact I could buy whatever I wanted!
That's the thrilling thing about shopping sprees...you get what you normally would not because you are tapping into resources beyond your own!
When I set up my prayer journal a few months ago, I had the same sensation as when that gift card was in my hand. Writing down my requests felt like a shopping spree. "I get to ask for that!?"
I do not have to think judgmentally towards so-and-so, but I can ask God that He will be the desire of their hearts? I do not have to wallow in my inadequacies, but I can ask God to help me get better at these things? I do not have to just be sad about the terrible things going on in our country, but I can immediately direct those feelings toward the God who loves justice and cares for the forsaken?
Though it's good to make our prayers based from scripture so that we know we are asking for His will, it is also good for us to tell God the random desires of our hearts...because He is our Father! It may or may not be God's desire for you to get to move to Colorado, for your son to learn how to ride his bike soon, or for a few stubborn pounds to bid you farewell, but we are His children and He delights in hearing our requests. Since we have His Spirit, we can be confident that He will change even our most petty prayers into something good (see Romans 8:26-27.) Asking of our Father will never, ever be a waste of time.
Jesus cried out to God and received no reply so that we can cry out to God and be heard loud and clear.
Ask big---and small---of your Father today, sisters.
He loves hearing from His children.
About the Author
Hope Henchey
Hope is a 27-year-old currently based in the suburbs of Tampa who loves and needs Jesus desperately. She has a passion for inviting others to read the Bible for themselves...beginning with the four little people she gets to disciple every day and call her Mommy! Her husband of eight years, Peter, is a blue-collar entrepreneur who seeks to be a light for Jesus in the workplace. They are both obsessed with Romans 8 and dream of growing their family through adoption someday.
Hope loves being outside, and her family enjoys traveling around the southeast in their RV. As an Enneagram 7, Hope has many random passions and interests, including but not limited to Coke Icees, clean sketch comedy, dip pen calligraphy, group fitness classes, theology, home birth, spaetzle, urbanism, bullet journaling, curricula-making, and much more. Domesticity is not her greatest strength, and her home is very messy, but being placed in roles that don't come naturally has been a major way that God is sanctifying her.
She posts encouragement on Instagram @called.beloved.kept and write