Opportunity

How many times have you asked something like this in a prayer:

"God make me more loving to my community?" or "Help me to become patient with my wife?" or "Help me to be strong in this."

The video clip above from the motion picture Evan Almighty is profound, because it reminds me that what we should be praying for instead is opportunity, which is almost something He always gives if we are just attentive.

The scene is a major transition in the movie. At this point in the story Evan's wife and their three boys have been feeling that Evan is irrational and ruining the family by building the ark. They’ve left Evan to build the ark by himself and are on their way to stay with the wife's parents. Stopping at a diner on the way, she meets God (Morgan Freeman) but doesn’t realize who she’s talking to. God encourages Joan and gives her some insight on life and prayer.

This idea of praying for opportunity is transforming my prayer life and my attentiveness to God's leading. So many times we treat Him like Santa or genie in a bottle with our requests but with hardly any desire to do anything on our part.

When we’re asking for help in a particular area, or when we’re asking God to help us grow in some way, He wants us along with our efforts to be a part of the solution. If we just pray for God to show us patience, but we aren’t actually trying to BE patient, how could we ever expect God to answer that prayer?

I want my children to be courageous. Now I instead pray for opportunities for me to teach them courage by modeling it and putting it on display in my own life. I want my children to be compassionate, but I wonder how many times in a day He gives me opportunity to live it out and I just flat out ignore him right after I've prayed for it.

Be careful what you pray for. Do you really want God to change you and your children? Opportunity lurks.