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A great quote from Paul Miller:

What about change in me? Almost every Christian is confident God will answer a prayer for change in us, and it scares us to death. For example, what happens if you pray for patience? God permits suffering in your life. What happens if you pray for humility? God humbles you. We’re scared of such prayers because we want to remain in control of our lives. We don’t trust in God.

We also don’t pray for change in ourselves because we don’t want to admit that we need to change. Look at how difficult this prayer is – Lord, this morning I feel irritable. Would you help me to be kind? In order to pray this, I have to stop being irritable long enough to admit my grumpiness to myself. It is difficult to see my attitude because the problem isn’t me; it’s all those other idiots.

The fatalism inherent in so much modern psychology immobilizes us as well. Emotional states are sacred. If I’m grumpy, I have a right to feel that way and to express my feelings. Everyone around me simply has to “get over it”. One of the worst sins, according to pop psychology, is to suppress your emotions. So to pray that I won’t be angry feels unauthentic, as if I am suppressing the real me.

One day Claire, our granddaughter, said to Jill, “I’m not having a good day, Grammy.” Jill was aware that Claire wasn’t having a good day, but she still said to her gently, “Claire, because of Jesus you can start any day over again.” In our modern world, such a response is almost heretical. Now that we have discovered our feelings, we are trapped by them.

Oddly enough, idolizing our emotions doesn’t free us to be ourselves but instead results in us being ruled by the ever-changing wind of feelings. We become a thousand selves or, to use Jesus’ words, “a reed shaken by the wind” (Matthew 11:7).

But if you take Jesus’ words seriously – “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do” (John 14:13) – it opens the door to the possibility of real change and hope. No longer are you captured by the mind of the culture. You’ve been invited into coregency with the Ruler of the universe. The King has come.

– Paul Miller, A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World

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