Why I don't pray for trials to cease

God has been challenging me lately in my prayer life. Ever since my trip to Baja in 2012/13, I've had a deeper understanding of how difficulties in this life bring us ever closer to God, how He uses them to teach us more than in any other circumstance in life, how they remind us that this is most definitely not our final destination, how they expose our need for God, and how His will is often accomplished through hard times. But now He is teaching me to apply this knowledge to my prayer life.


 It's often easy to pray for the very best in life for our loved ones. It's easy to pray that all their troubles will go away and that their lives will be all but perfect. It's easy to pray that nothing bad will happen to them and that they will never fail. But I can't pray like that anymore. After all I've learned about and experienced in the way of trials and suffering (see last post: http://asongofstruggle.blogspot.com/2014/03/im-about-to-say-something-crazy.html), I can't pray that my loved ones will be relieved of their troubles or that they won't experience them down the road. As Americans, the concept of not praying for absolute comfort and safety is foreign, and it almost sounds hateful, or at the least, unloving. But Jesus never once, not one time in the 33 years He lived on the earth, promised safety or comfort. Instead, He said the exact opposite. He promised persecution, trials, and hate. He didn't promise He would immediately remove us from any hardship as soon as we ask, but He did say He would always be with us.


As hard as it is to believe, praying for the absolute comfort and safety of others just might be equivalent to praying for a stagnant relationship with God and an attachment to the world. So next time you kneel to pray for someone experiencing hardship, or even yourself, rethink your prayers. Instead of praying that their situation would do a 180, pray that they would learn more about God, see their need for Him more, be reminded that this is not their home, and that this situation would be used to bring God glory and accomplish His will. That sounds a whole lot better than just praying for them to be comfortable.