As Simple as Asking

In my journey with God, I'm discovering that so much hinges on simply asking things of Him.

For example, I find that many believers don't press through in spiritual disciplines (such as regular prayer and fasting and the Word, etc.) because they have such fear of falling into legalism or spiritual pride.

I discovered long ago that one of the best ways to healthily press forward in pursuit of God (without falling into the very common trap of spiritual pride and legalism) is to simply ask the Holy Spirit to save me from those traps as I press into Him.

The reason this is so effective is that there are no human safeguards that I can come up with that can alert me to the inevitable subtle slide into pride and legalism; only the Holy Spirit knows me well enough to detect the first movements towards this sin as I pursue Him with all my heart.

And so I ask Him, "Holy Spirit, will you get my attention when You see me beginning to go down the slippery slope of pride and independence in my pursuit of God? Thank You that You delight to do this for me!" He has done this for me many times in my journey with Him, and it frees me to go after Him wholeheartedly and confidently without being held back by the fear of legalism. Then when He does alert me, I quickly repent and recalibrate my heart attitude without having to scrap the pursuit of Him. (Our tendency is that when we see legalism in our practice, we think that the way to deal with that is to forsake all spiritual disciplines.)

Another reason this is effective is that He will detect this tendency much sooner than I would, and so He can alert me before it reaches a point of being a major issue to deal with. He sees the very first sprouts of sin before they are discernible to me.

This idea of asking applies, of course, to many more areas than just the one I give as an example here. The longer I live and walk with the Lord, the more revelation I have about my identity as His daughter, and I am learning to be a daughter to Him and ask Him for all that I need, depending on His desire to care for me in all areas of my life.

I've discovered that a lot of times, rather than verbalizing a clear request to God, I sort of have this unspoken "wishing" going on inside of me. I believe He likes me to get specific and ask for what I need with specific words, whether it's a temporal need or spiritual or emotional or a need in another person I'm interceding for. This takes concentration and discipline, but it is well worth the reward of getting closer to my Father in the process of finding words to communicate with Him about a specific need.

Asking shows that the person has confidence that the one being asked is both willing and able to provide for the need, and Jesus made the way through the cross for us to approach the Father with confidence.

The Lord bless you this week, and I ask that He will breathe on you His breath of life in a fresh way. May we all learn to ask as confident children of God and as a result, find that He watches over all the aspects of our life with joy!