I am forever trying to earn things with God, and it just doesn’t work. When will I learn not to earn? As Ann Voskamp would say, I have “chronic soul amnesia,” continually forgetting what God has whispered to my heart. In my prayer journal I wrote “In Christ I am already perfect. I don’t need to accomplish anything because He has already accomplished everything.”

Recently I have become aware of how this is true of prayer, both in the listening and in the speaking. When I listen and God tells me something, it’s usually something He is doing for me, not something He expects me to do. It’s hard to explain, because on earth if someone with power tells me to do something, they expect me to do it. But God’s words accomplish what they say. “Then God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” (Genesis 1:3) “Then He walked over to the coffin and touched it, and the bearers stopped. ‘Young man,’ He said, ‘I tell you, get up.’ Then the dead boy sat up and began to talk! And Jesus gave him back to his mother.” (Luke 7:14, 15)

I am no more able to trust or love or stop worrying than that dead boy was to sit up. Jesus’s words carry with them the power of action. When He speaks to me, it is a pronouncement of what He is giving me and doing in me, not a command for me to do something. When He says “Don’t worry about anything” (Philippians 4:6), He is giving me a gift. He’s saying, “I’ve got it covered. You don’t have anything to worry about.” His words bestow things on us rather than expecting things from us.

Likewise, in speaking to God in prayer, I need not think I have to accomplish anything. My whole life I have prayed “help me” prayers. “Lord, please help me be patient today.” “Lord, please help my give my children permission to feel whatever they are feeling.” Recently I realized that this is rather ridiculous. It would be like me, with my business degree, going out to build a house and inviting an expert builder along to “help” me. It would make much more sense for me to ask the builder to build the house, and for me to be available if he needs an extra pair of hands.

In the same way, I can pray “Lord, please give my children permission to feel whatever they are feeling.” He is infinitely better equipped to accomplish that than I am. He may or may not include me in His answer, but it will be much easier for Him to include me, than for me to include Him. If I start trying to do it, I’ve already missed His timing and have no idea how or what to expect of Him helping me. If I leave it with Him, He will do it as He sees fit and involve me perfectly. As an added bonus, I don’t have to be thinking and worrying and trying, because He’s got it covered!

Slowly he is coaxing me out of my armor of good behavior, inviting me to trust Him. And as I emerge, feeling a bit naked, He reminds me, “As a father pities His children, so the Lord pities those who fear Him. For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.” (Psalm 103:13, 14) He is not expecting me to get things right. He is expecting me to be weak, and His strength is the perfect match for my weakness. His joy is to provide for me – and you.