21 Days of Prayer/Journaling - Day 2 - "Motives"

Mark 10:51 "What do you want me to do for you?"

Jesus asked this question to a blind man. Jesus knew that the man wanted to see, but Jesus wanted to hear the blind man ask for himself. Today's question for our 21 days of prayer and journaling is...

What would you ask God to do for you if He was standing in front of you?

I had a hard time with this one. I don't often ask for things for myself. I find it much easier to ask for things for other people. Besides, asking for things for myself seems so selfish. However, God WANTS you to ask. A very popular verse in the bible is James 4:2.


"You do not have because you do not ask God"

So, I decided to give it a shot and I asked God to reveal something new to me. Reveal something about Him that I don't know or understand. I have spent most of the day waiting for this revelation. I had faith that He would deliver and I was curious about what He would teach me today. When I got home from work I spoke with my Husband about the conversations we each had with God today. He told me about the things he asked for and I told him about my question. I explained that I felt like God had revealed something new to me during yesterday's journal. It was fun and exciting and I wanted to feel that again. I knew that I just needed to sit down with God one on one before He was ready to reveal this truth to me.

I started writing out this journal (not really knowing where it would go) and I went to biblegateway.com to look up the verse in James 4. That is where God revealed what He wanted me to learn. If you just stop at the end of verse 2, you really don't get the entire message. Let me show you...

James 4: 2"You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you might spend what you get on your own pleasures."

God wants us to ask, but He also wants us to ask for the right reasons. We all want to win the lottery, but why? What's the motive? Oh... we all say that we will give money to the church or other charitable places. But that is only after we buy a million dollar motor home to travel the countryside in. God will only give me what I ask for if He knows that I will use it to glorify HIM!