Lenten Prayers, Dangerous Prayers

I love lent. Whether I choose to eat only rice and beans for 40 days, don’t give anything up at all, spend more time in prayer, bury the “hallelujahs” or let them ring loud, or even, like two years ago, give up LENT altogether for lent, these 40 (47) days each year always prove to be ones in which God draws me deeper and deeper into who He is and how big His love is. This year, I can tell, will be no exception.

Back in college, a friend introduced me to the concept of “dangerous” prayers. I’ve occasionally found myself praying one or more of them, but through some things God’s been doing in my life lately, I decided that perhaps Lent would be a good chance to pray through them again. The prayers are:
Search Me, Break Me, Stretch Me, Lead Me, Use Me, Cover Me, and Restore Me.

Already, in these first 7 days of Lent, I have found myself blown away by the ways in which God has answered these prayers in my life. Today, as I focused in on praying “Stretch Me Jesus,” God did not disappoint. One thing he made clear this morning was that by praying this prayer He would take me outside of my comfort zone. You can only imagine my reaction when I got into worship tonight, flipped over the bulletin and discovered that the sermon was titled: “Out of My Comfort Zone.” Haha, God… you’re a funny one. (I literally laughed out loud in my pew.)

While God is definitely going to take me out of comfort zone this Lent, I was thankful for Pastor’s reminder tonight that when we’re taken out of OUR comfort zone, we are taken into GOD’S comfort zone. He never leaves us. He doesn’t push us out, say “Good Luck!”, and walk away. He’s drawing out of our comfort zone so that we can be even nearer to Himself. While these types of prayers really do SEEM dangerous to us because they cause us to have to trust and not be in control, there really is no safer place to walk than directly in the will of God.

So, as scary as it is, I ask… Stretch Me God! Take me out of my comfort zone! And whatever that means, may it lead me straight into the comfort of Your arms. Amen!