my ‘A-Ha’ prayer moment

Every day, I am blessed to have the opportunity to spend time with God. And I do. I refer to this as my ‘quiet time’ where it’s just God and me. Who? Yes, God. The creator of the universe. The God who created me, created you, created everything down to the laptop I am typing on. Who am I to have the privilege to TALK to the one behind everything that makes up all of creation? No big deal. Think about that for a minute. What a privilege.

My quiet time is when I carve out a portion of every single day to spend time with Him. During this time, I seek Him. I pray. I sit in silence as I listen to that small still voice of God speaking to me. I read the Bible. I journal. Typically, I read some sort of book or daily bible study. I might listen to a podcast, or read blogs/articles that I feel will encourage me to get closer to God.

I have a desire to get closer to God. I want to get so close to God that he speaks to me personally. Yes. The God who created everything…I want HIM to speak to ME, Alisha. The same God who spoke to Moses, Noah, Adam & Eve…and that brought his son, Jesus, to speak and ultimately die for the world. The God who created the story, knows the story from the beginning, throughout the middle, to the very end. The God that lives within me, who is always above me, who has gone before me, and who is always there for me. The God that sees what we don’t see yet.

Think about what I just said. We have access to the God that ALREADY knows the ending to the story. I often try to be the maker, the author, and the lead role in my life. But we have a God who is all of that in one. He is the beginning and the end, the first and the last. And I don’t know about you, but I want to strive to follow the one who already knows the ending. When life gets hard or when life is good, I want to follow the one who knows the master plan.

Ladies, I want you to hear this: sometimes the master plan doesn’t go the way we assume it should go. But there is a purpose behind it. God has it all written out. His designs for us are “plans to prosper us and not to harm us, plans to give us hope and a future” Jeremiah 29:11. He is FOR US, and he is on our team. We can’t prevent bad things from happening as sin entered our world a very long time ago…but we can choose to spend time with God in a daily quiet time and allow God to lead us. A God that will lead me to make major decisions in life comforting me and loving me along the way giving me a “peace that surpasses all understanding”. Phillipians 4:7

Now why wouldn’t I want to draw closer to the God that knows the beginning to the end and gives me such unfathomable peace? A God that has the BEST plan for me even when it doesn’t always make sense. The end of the story is this….I will spend eternity with God in Heaven. Jesus says in John 14:2-3 that “My Father’s house has many rooms…I’m going there to prepare a place for you….I will come back and take you to be with me”. Jesus is returning one day.

And we have the privilege to not only FOLLOW the lead of the One who wrote the story, but also TALK to One who wrote the story. How cool is that?

So how does one talk to God? The answer is simple: Prayer. What exactly is Prayer? Prayer = talking to God aka bringing all of what we ask and all of our wants to Him hoping he will react like a genie in a bottle and will grant us all our wishes because we know best, right? Wrong.

I used to get SO frustrated with this ritual of prayer. I would pray, and I feel like I was talking to a wall. I would ask for wisdom or direction and then…well crickets. So then I think that if I try to focus really hard on an ‘answer’ or for a direction on what to do about something going on my life, then maybe a sign or answer would miraculously fall from the sky. But once again, crickets. As a Christian, I have a deep desire to have a personal relationship with the Lord. Not a one way relationship where I am the ONLY one talking. And this is what it felt like for years. I thought this whole prayer thing is alright as I’ll just pray and throw some prayers up into Heaven and hope one of them sticks and we’ll go from there. Has anyone else ever felt this way?

Oh but sisters, let me tell you – prayer is SO MUCH more than that. Unfortunately, it took a lot of frustration and beating my head against the wall day in and day out – a wall that never spoke back to me. It wasn’t until I finally decided to open up and read the good ole’ Bible that my frustration changed. I mean sure I’ve read the Bible many times as I went to a private Christian school most of my life where it was required of me. I can quote scripture like it ain’t no thing HA! But I had never truly read and got deep into the Bible to seek answers. Furthermore, I never truly grasped the meanings behind the words. In fact, I never really thought of the Bible as anything more than a history book of sorts.

Psalm 119:10 says “The Word is a Lamp unto My feet, and a Light unto My Path”. The Word aka God’s Words aka the Bible. Pretty powerful book if it acts as the light to the path for my feet walk on, don’t you think? The Bible is the guide to my everyday life, my everyday path, and my everyday steps.

Let me tell you ladies – the moment I started diving into the Bible is the moment God startied speaking to me personally and directly. It’s as if His words come right off the paper, and into my heart where I can hear Him so clearly. The more time I spend in His Word and eagerly seek to know Him more, the closer I feel to the God I desire to know. Jeremiah 29:13 say that if “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all my heart.”

If there is one thing you takeaway from this post, take this:

Prayer is when WE talk to God. But reading His Word is when HE talks to us.

I challenge you to not just pray, but SEEK Him and as God promises – you will FIND Him. Start by spending time in His word. Allow him to speak to you right there in your quiet time. Did you know Jesus had quiet times himself? He would often go and pray to God, his Father, and he did so in ‘quiet’. He gave a sermon shortly before his crucifixion and said “when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place.” Seek him in the secret place, in your quiet time. And when you seek him, he promises that you will find him.

Jesus also said that same day during his sermon that when you do pray…to pray for God’s will to be done, and not our own saying “your kingdom come, and your will be done.” His BEST may not be OUR BEST. And may not be the way WE think things should be. I often, and I mean OFTEN pray for specific things (which isn’t a bad thing), but simply because it’s what I think is best for me and my life. Because I am more experienced than God himself. Or so I think. I am often humbled.

2 Samuel 22:31 says “As for God, His way is perfect”. So if His will (God’s will) is truly perfect, then why would we want to persuade him to do something that’s less than perfect? (our will)

Prayers may not always be answered as specifically requested, but just remember that it’s because He knows what’s best. When you realize this, the answered or not answered prayer is because he sees what we don’t see, and His perspective is better than ours.

XoXo,

Alisha Headley

Meet the Blogger

Alisha Headley

Hiiii. I’m Alisha – A Bible teacher, writer, and speaker who traded in my fast-paced career in private equity to become a stay-at-home wifey and pursue God’s call to write.

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jennslilfarm

Yes! Loved this 😍

Alisha Headley

aweee, I love hearing that! Thanks for following and thanks for commenting. I’ll be posting some more posts soon, so stay tuned. Xo

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