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What to Do When Your Prayer Has Become Mostly Complaint · Daily Devotions for Busy Lives

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  Bart Leger: Anne-Marie Wins started noticing her body giving
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  out on her. Her muscles were losing their strength, little by
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  little, and the doctors eventually called it myositis.
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  The disease that was taking her strength would not be going She
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  prayed the way anyone would, but her prayers had turned into one
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  long complaint. When a friend suggested she try thanking God
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  in the middle of it, something in her pushed back on that. She
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  told God straight out that she could not find a single thing to
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  be thankful for in this. The truth was, Anne-Marie wasn't
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  being difficult. She meant it. The thing was, she could see how
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  thanks and a body that was failing could be put together in
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  the same prayer. We'll come back to what you did next, but
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  first, welcome to Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. I'm
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  Bart Leger. slip into complaint, and some weeks I get closer to
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  that line than I care to admit. Two things pull me back. We live
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  in a sin-cursed world, and none of us was ever promised complete
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  health or a life free of struggle. And God is in control
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  of whatever comes, and He gives the grace to deal with me.
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  Now let me say something before anything else, because you need
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  to hear this from me. Prayer is one of the places God welcomes
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  your wants to hear about what's going on in your life and what
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  you feel is wrong. Scripture is full of people who told him at
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  length, and He didn't rebuke them for it. ..where they notice
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  that complaint is nearly all their prayer has been. Every
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  prayer is either asking for something or reporting what
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  hurts. If you could play back the last 30 days of your prayer
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  life, it would sound like a list of grievances instead of a
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  loving conversation. Nothing went wrong to make that happen.
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  ..until the water has nowhere to go. Paul gave the Colossians a
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  short instruction for this. It's in Colossians 4: 2. Devote
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  yourselves to with an alert mind and a thankful heart. Look at
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  how Paul lays this out. Thanksgiving is inside the
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  command about prayer, right alongside devotion and an alert
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  mind. For Paul, thankfulness is part of the equipment you pray
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  with, the same way attention is. And notice what he never He
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  doesn't tell them to quit bringing God their trouble. Paul
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  wrote that letter from a prison cell. And a few verses later, he
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  mentions his own chains and asks them to pray about his situation.
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  So the man telling you to pray with a thankful heart was doing
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  it locked up and asking for help. Here's what makes this workable.
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  Thankfulness is a discipline. And a discipline does its job,
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  whether or not the feeling shows up that day. You don't have to
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  feel grateful to say something true about what God has done.
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  You just have to say it in his presence while the difficult
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  thing is there and maybe still unchanged. So, start with one.
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  One thing. Make it the first sentence of your prayer. Right
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  alongside with adoration. And then go on and say everything
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  else you were already going to What would you say? So,
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  Anne-Marie asked God to change her heart, and then she started
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  small. One morning, she prayed, "Thank you that I can still lift
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  my arms over my head and put on a shirt. Another day, thank you
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  that I could still bend on my shoes." The disease didn't back
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  off. Her muscles kept weakening. But her prayers stopped being
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  all complaint because now every one of them started with
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  something God had given her that day. She learned that thanks is
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  a sentence that you can choose to say even when nothing has
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  changed. Look at what she found to "Thank you that I can still
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  lift my arms over my head." That's a fact about that
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  particular morning, and it didn't cost her anything the
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  saying of it. It was true at seven o'clock whether or not she
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  felt anything about it. And look at what the story refuses to
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  promise you. The disease kept going. Her muscles kept
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  weakening. What changed was where her prayer started. Here's
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  today's challenge. Tonight, before you say anything else to
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  God, say one true sentence about something He's done or something
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  He has given you. Say it out loud to Him. Then, go ahead and
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  complain for as long as you need to. Do that every night this
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  week. You don't have to stop telling God how you feel. What
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  you're doing is adding gratitude for the blessings you do have.
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  And that's the whole assignment. Father, thank you that you take
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  our complaints and that you've never once told us to clean
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  ourselves up before we speak. Thank you that we can bring you
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  the worst of it without apology. For everybody listening whose
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  prayers have gone all one direction these past few months,
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  give them one thing today they can thank you for and let that
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  be where they start. And keep doing the work you're doing and
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  the things that haven't changed yet. In Jesus' name, amen. If
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  this episode encouraged you today, would you share it with
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  someone who might need to hear it? Just go to
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  dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/335 and copy the link. It only
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  takes a second and it might make a real difference in someone's
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  day. Thanks for joining me on Daily Devotions for Busy Lives.
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  Remember, God welcomes your complaint. Put one true thank
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  you in front of it tonight and see what a week of that does.
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  Come back next time for more encouragement to help you live
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  grounded in God's truth. Until then, God bless and have a great
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  day.