Pray for the Good Things You Long For
God’s answer may surprise you with its power and promptness.
"If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?”
—Matthew 7:11 KJV
What’s the best way to pray?
I journaled about this question on the plane last night. I reasoned that one ought to pray for genuinely good things.
“What good things could I pray for?” I wrote.
“The things I long for,” came the answer.
This prompted another question: “What do I long for?”
Something inside me answered: “Peace. Sleep.”
By “peace” I meant inner peace of mind and soul. The kind of peace that allows for easy sleep. A peace that I have been lacking.
I generally wake from my nightly slumber after only five to six hours, often less. And I struggle to return to sleep. This creates a vicious cycle, because my sleep deprivation is one of the causes of my lacking inner peace.
There on the plane, I imagined myself at peace and sleeping well.
Then something that suprised me entered the theater of my mind: an image of myself eating meat.
In a flash, I realized that my biggest problem underlying my anxiety and sleeplessness has been my diet. I have been overeating, eating too often, and eating poorly. In the past, I’ve had good experiences with meat-heavy, low-carb diets, and I’ve read testimonials from people who have experienced psychological and sleep benefits from keto and carnivore diets.
I envisioned a good thing I desired and then immediately discovered a potential path to that good thing. And seeing that path clearly, I also gained the resolve to actually take that path. Previously I had been struggling to muster the will to reform my diet.
My contemplative journaling had been a form of prayer. I wasn’t just asking myself about what to pray for and what I long for. I was asking God. And God’s answers to my questions emerged from my unconscious.
Then, in bethinking myself of the good things I longed for, I was, in a sense, already praying to God for them. And, through my unconscious, God immediately answered my prayer with the spontaneous image that made me realize what I was called to do to make my dearest wishes come true.
For me, “What good things do I long for?” is a powerful question for guiding prayer. It helps me see past the whims and preoccupations of the moment and brings to mind my best current approximation of what I really need in the grand scheme of things. It brings me closer to God.
“Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”
— Romans 8:26 KJV
My thanks to Charles F. Stanley. I’ve been reading his Every Day in His Presence. And that book’s devotion for this day inspired this devotion of my own.