The primary purpose of prayer is not to change circumstances;
the primary purpose of prayer is to change us!
But either way, the chief objective remains the same:
to glorify God in any and every situation. — Mark Batterson
So many times, we lose our focus when we are praying. We are fixated on getting out of them, wanting God to take our problems away so we can be relieved. If we are honest with ourselves, our prayers tend to gradually lean more to our own form of comfort...don't they? We start praying "praying away" prayers, asking God to get us out of difficult, painful, and challenging situations. We tell Him, "I didn't ask for this!" And He says, I know. And we sit in our chair, contemplating, "But why, God, why?" Sound familiar? You're not alone. God tends to show us his answer where we would not think to look; right at the problem itself. We tell ourselves there is another way.
Lean back and mull this over: We are so set on getting out, we forget to grow through them.
Our thoughts so anxious, we fail to get anything out them.
We are so fixated on God changing our circumstances that we never permit God to change us.
Sometimes the purpose of prayer is to get us out of circumstances, prayers of deliverance, but most of the time it is to get us through them. We need to stop asking God to solve our problems, and ask Him to help us stand firm in them, stay sustained, and have the willpower to continue in integrity. When has God ever told us to take the easy route? It never deepens our relationship with Him, never increase our faith, our trust, and definitely never shapes us into the person we were created to be.
We want to pray away every problem, but short-sighted prayers will truncate God's perfect plan.
In John 9 there was a man that was born blind. The people assumed it had something to do with him or his parents sinning, or maybe just a lack of faith. But Jesus corrected them saying, "This happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” Never doubt that God has a plan. We must remember, that through everything, in every good and bad situation, that it is all for God's glory. When we change our focus to God's Glory and perspective to how our prayers will change us, the purpose of prayer will be fulfilled.
