Soakin' Up Life . . . at a 100 MPH!

Yesterday, I wrote about prayer and our desires and how we often pray prayers that don't reflect God's desires.   Check it out here. That really challenged me, as well.  Prayer has really been on my heart lately.  Maybe, it's because that is where the battle is fought…the real battle…the battle for our souls, for our hearts, for our minds, for our families, for our marriages…in prayer. It's taken me a lifetime to get to this point. Crazy!  I know…right?  That's probably because I'm task oriented and I'm a guy.  Not a great combination for seeking someone else's thoughts or help. It's not that I didn't believe in prayer.  It's not that I haven't spent intentional time in prayer in the past.  I have.  It was during a time of intense prayer for my wife, Karen, that God told me she would be diagnosed with colon cancer.  It was two year later, during a time of prayer that God told me she would never recover and eventually die of cancer -

Reading Oswald Chambers' My Utmost for His Highest can mess you up…and it can lead to other thoughts. This morning's thought did just that.  It messed me up and led me to think about some other things - of course, that could be my A.D.D.  When I got to his statement " The purpose of God is not to answer our prayers, but by our prayers we discern the mind of God… " the thought crossed my mind, but doesn't God give us the desires of our hearts ( Ps. 37:4 )?  This is where my brain went kinda sideways this morning…I know, go figure. When I talk to groups about prayer this usually comes up…you know, the idea that God will give us the desires of our hearts.  And someone inevitably jumps in with both feet and says something like, " Yeah, but over time God's desires become our desires. " Well alrighty, then!  Now it's gonna get a little tricky, so stay with me.  If that's true, then why don't we see more prayers answered?  I mean, wouldn'