Petition Shift

By nature and training, I am a person who prays: a lot.

When I hear an emergency siren, I say a prayer. The prayer is simple, “Dear God, please take care of the person or people that are in trouble and the person or people going to their aid.”

Living in the country, I don’t have much occasion to utter this plea, but this past summer I spent a month living in an urban center where the screeching of sirens was constant.

In the past, I didn’t pay much attention to my reflexive prayer, but this siren induced prayer blitz, caused me to notice how much I pray and how my prayers have changed.

The gift of grace has been working, making deep-seated necessary shifts, and I am different. There was no conscious striving on my part, which was dramatic and miraculous in itself. Instead, change, subtle and inconspicuous, has come.

I used to go to God with a long list of demands.

This approach besides being desperate, sadly, also showed how little I trusted.

The list went something like this:

“God, I’m ASKING—the Bible tells us to ask—for this amount of money.”

“God, please—God also likes manners—give me this job.”

“God, please send me a husband.”

“God please give me …”

“Give me, Give Me, GIVE ME.”

My prayers were more like an order to Amazon, said with the same frantic urgency, rather than a reverent plea to the Creator.

I still desire loving relationships, and I also crave a life filled with beautiful things, but there has been a shift in the point that I now dive down into these longings to ask God for help.

Instead of asking for money, I ask God to make me a responsible steward of wealth. I ask for the grounding and clarity required to handle this responsibility. I ask to be given the stamina and work ethic necessary to sustain the gifting of prosperity. I also ask for a kind and humble heart which always remembers that all treasure, however accumulated, is never mine; rather, I am merely the custodian in charge of its care.

When asking for a different car, I first look at the one I have. Do I keep it clean? Do I take it in for regular maintenance checks and repairs? Do I use it to help others?

Sadly, my answer is ‘no’ to a number of these questions; even if I do share, I find myself doing so begrudgingly. 

A lot of these questions show me how small my heart still is. And if I answer them truthfully, they let me know whether I’m ready for the things for which I ask.

So my prayers have changed.

“God help me to take care of the blessings that You have given me. Help me to be open-handed and remember that I am not sharing what is mine but what is Yours.”

And what about relationships: my desire for good friends, family, and love? Yes, these requests have shifted too. They have become less about the long list of requirements I demand in another and more about asking God to change me.

“Please, Lord, help me to be patient and kind. Please soften my stubborn, self-righteous heart. Make me a good listener. Help me to give people the room to evolve into who You’ve meant them to be, instead of trying to make them into a smaller version of themselves because I’m feeling jealous and afraid.”

“God Change ME.”

This is the essence of most of my prayers; this shorthand petition has become ceaseless as I move throughout my day.

“God Change ME.”

I’m still asking for the same things, but the emphasis is different.

As I trust more, my demands have relaxed into requests.

Trust is building that assures me that when I am ready for what I desire, it will come.

In so many ways it already has, but as I wait for more because we always want more, I ask,

“God Change ME."

~ By Susan Cruickshank