My verse-of-the-day text to pray continually arrived just as I pulled into the church parking lot for a women’s breakfast. I glanced down to swipe and clear off my phone before heading in.
That couldn’t be the verse of the day. There had to be more. What was before? Or after? I swiped to open the app, and there it was again—this time on a pretty sunset background: pray continually.
I thought the Lord must not have had much for me that day. After all, I do pray continually. I have prayed circles around each aspect of my life. I pray for my marriage, for my children to know God, for God to lift addictions, for depression to flee, and for all my friends, their families, my family, and even a few strangers.
Yet I sensed God saying, “You forgot someone.” I heard Him like I hear the radio playing. “You have prayed, my child. You have been diligent in offering up those prayers for all the ones in your life. But you forgot yourself.”
“But, Lord, I am not the one who needs my eyes opened, my will lessened, or my mouth closed,” I said.
I teared up as I realized the enormity of what I had been doing. How arrogant to think I did not need all the same prayers I lifted for others. I had been so sure of changing other people’s hearts and circumstances that I had not asked for my own. I had not prayed for my steps only to lead to God or for my heart to change to recognize my spouse. I had not asked for my physical body to be paralyzed against anything that wasn’t godly or for the same faith to believe that things would turn out in each situation.
Let God show you how to put yourself in your prayers. Ask God to change you, mold you, and guide you.
Jamie Carter is a wife, mother, daughter, sister, and friend from rural North Carolina. She used to say she was a writer because of her experience as the editor of a local paper and guidebooks, but then she reached deep down and said, “No, I am a writer.” Her desire is to write about what God blesses her with: daily insights, encouragements, and disciplines.