‘If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.”
John 15 vs 7
A few years back, a friend called me out of the blue, her voice a delicate mix of shock, wonder, awe, and excitement. The conversation went as follows:
Friend: Segs?
Me: Hey, how are you?
Friend: I’m good, Segs, it’s just… wow! I don’t even know how to explain it.
Me: How do you mean?
Friend: Where do I even start? Okay, a few weeks back, I decided to fast and pray for a week because there was something I really wanted God to help me with, to do with work and stuff. But on the second day of fasting and praying, I sensed God was telling me to focus only on how much he loves me. At first, I was like ‘why? I know that already, I need your help with something’ but he just kept telling me to focus on how much he loves me. I was actually quite irritated at first.
Me: So, what happened?
Friend: Mate, by day three, my prayer had completely changed!
Me: How do you mean?
Friend: I started praying for him to help me become the person he wants me to be. It was like the more I recognised his love for me, the more I wanted my life to be focused on him and the person he wants me to be. So weird! Everything else just seemed irrelevant.
I’ll stop there to protect her privacy. The underlying message behind my friend’s experience is that we often misunderstand the verse ‘ask whatever you want and it will be done for you’; believing it to mean that our own self-centred desires will be answered. But the truth is that when we remain in (focus on) God’s unconditional love for us, our hearts begin to lean towards his desires for us, as against our own. A deeper understanding of His love enables us to recognise who we are to him and what he desires for us. As such, our prayers become less about ourselves and our earthly desires, and more about him and who he has called us to be. It is very much more in this light that ‘whatever we ask for will be done for us’.
A few verses later, Jesus says, ‘I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.’ (John 15 vs 11)
Do you find that whenever you apply yourself to something that God did not intend for you, there is an internal unease that simply won’t go away? Some might call it a lack of inner peace, and others an inexplicable worry that invariably erodes their joy. Whatever the case, the feeling gnaws away at you on a daily basis, refusing to budge, even in those fleeting moments when you think things are going well. The only and surest way to joy and a peace of mind is aligning hearts and minds in line with who we are and what God desires for us.
God created you. He loves you dearly and knows what is best for you. Remain in Him by focusing on how much he loves you. And as you do so, your desires will begin to align with his, leading to a greater internal peace and joy.
