Yesterday, I said that hearing myself say that I was praying for something I wasn't really praying for changed the way that I approach prayer. And I said that it has also changed the way that I use language (which is already a very precise way).
Here's what that change is for me:
I no longer say that I'm praying for things that I'm not really praying for. And that includes you.
I no longer promise my God to be doing things that He hasn't told me He's doing and I haven't been asking Him to do.
Instead, I have expanded my vocabulary and adopted three different words for how I relate to these situations.
- I might say I'm "wish"ing for something. If you hear me say that, it means I don't really have a particular attachment to that outcome, but I think there's a possibility it might be good anyway. I'm throwing it out into the realm of "things that might happen, come what may," with perhaps a little bit of a want, just because someone else wants it for themselves or there might be a good in it. The "wish" is reserved for something I don't invest a lot of time or energy in thinking about, something I haven't really determined whether it would be a blessing or a hindrance, something with more unknowns than I really want to wrestle with in a particular moment. Sometimes, for something that might even seem impossible. I wish that would happen, but I'm not holding my breath for it and it's not a deal-breaker for my life.
- Sometimes, I'll say that I'm "hope"-ing for something. If you hear me say I'm hoping, that means I'm embracing confident assurance. Hope is knowing that something is the promise, but not knowing the timing of it. It's understanding that something is coming, but not quite knowing what it will look like when it gets here...or when it will get here. It's continuing to believe in something that hasn't happened yet as though it already has. Hope lets you start building your season around a truth, whether that truth is reality yet or not. I hope for a lot of things because I know that my God is good, that He loves me, and that He's made clear what He's doing. Hope is actually something you do - or something I do - when I've already prayed and I know what the answer it. It's living into the future when all you have is the present and the promise. I hope that happens...because I know it's coming, and I can't wait.
- And, of course, I will still say I am "pray"ing for something. If you hear me say I'm praying, then I really am praying. I am seeking God's will and God's input on whatever crazy thing my mind has latched onto. I am seeking to discover whether it is part of God's promise for me, part of the good that He is working in the world, or if it's not. I am confessing my finite understanding and my limited imagination and opening the possibilities up to whatever God might be wanting to do with them. I am inviting Him to show me and to make the promise that makes hope possible. I pray for that to happen, but I haven't yet figured out what it looks like in God's vision and not just my own.
So my language has become more precise, but with it, so, too, has my faith. I no longer waste my heart on things that ought to be wishes; I no longer languish in prayer for things that ought to be hopes; and I no longer just throw prayer into the wind and hope something sticks.
By defining my terms, I have shaped my faith in a very meaningful way so that when I catch myself carelessly using one of these words, I am able to hear it in my own voice, pause, think about what that means, and ask myself if that's really what I'm doing here. If it is, then great; if it's not, then it's time to readjust and ask myself what I should be doing.
And, oddly, though I have come to a place where I've stopped saying that I am praying for everything, I actually find myself praying more because I'm more intentional about what that means to me.
Do you have language that is a little more careless than you thought it was? What would it mean to your life - and your faith - to clean it up a bit and really define your terms? How might it change your prayer life?
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