Where Have I Been/Answered Prayers!

#answeredprayers #thisis30 #2023 #newblog #faithfridays

Hey yall, Let's start with the elephant in the room....yes I have been gone for about 5 months. I honestly have no answers for this LOL. I truly believe I needed to take a step back because a lot of incidents happened leading up to my 30th birthday and after. Each incident took a toll on me so I had decided to take some time for me and reflect on my life, personal decisions, relationships and more.

The good thing about reflection periods is that you can be honest and vulnerable with yourself. For me, I was able to see that I needed to be honest with God with the things that I was dealing with. I literally pulled back from everyone and everything I loved. It was time to lay the cards out on the table and truly talk to God about EVERYTHING! But during this time, something had really plagued my heart which required me to go into isolation mode and submit many prayer requests. This was not easy!

One thing I can tell you is when you pray about something, God hears you. I can stand confidently on that! Now, how He answers your prayers is totally up to Him. Even with keeping that in mind, you should still expose what is on your heart to Him for He cares for you. I learned this lesson for the past few months and it has changed my life. See, when we make our request to God, it exposes to Him: what we desire, are in need of, or burden we are carrying. Often times, we are not sure if we will receive the desired result of the request that is made. There is a 50/50 chance you may or may not. But let's look at some reasons why....

1.) Where are your motives for this prayer request? What is the motivation behind what you are praying about? Is this truly for the benefit to build you up or something different? Are you truly going to honor God after you receive your desired result? In this time, you can think about is this more importantly about worldly value. There were some things that I prayed for that I later realized, I was not in need of it and it had no benefit to my life. Like me, some of our request are also self centered and destructive to the people around us.

2.) Will this alter the way you view God? Will this prayer request enhance your relationship with Him or will you trust that He will hear you and take care of you. When I prayed about things, especially about my needs, I noticed that my heart posture changed with how I viewed the Father. It was like, I know if anyone wants me to be at peace and be of service, it's God. If I'm suffering or don't have anyone to turn to, God is there. With my prayer request, my heart posture was in a place of vulnerability and it helped me grow my faith and trust in The Lord with every request made.

Trusting God with your prayer request is essential. Prayer is important and God will answer your prayers, but you must communicate with Him. Remember that you have to be patient on certain things while other request will be handled the way He sees fit. And you have to remember that though we pray about something, our hearts will expose if this request has selfish intent behind it and/or if this is something that will bring glory to God, or just bring praise to ourselves. As God's children, He loves us and cares for us. He also cares about the things we care about. And I have to say, over the past few months, one of the major people I prayed for, God heard my prayers. I fasted, read my Word and prayed. I cried A LOT! Everything worked out the way it was supposed to but this continues to keep me pressed into my relationship with Him at all times.

My advice to you: continue to fervently pray with a vulnerable heart. Know that God is present with you through the good, bad and extremely painful moments that feel they can last for a lifetime. One secret I have learned from all this....once you start your prayer request with lovely intentions, you will not want to stop. And this will only be the beginning of you seeing how good God is and what type of God we serve!

P.S. I'm officially 30. Should I start giving post about lessons I learn in my 30s???

Happy Friday!!!