# THE WILL OF GOD
Prayer Secret #2 is the next step when approaching God with a specific prayer request. This one seems to be so easy to grasp, but many Christians keep violating this basic common sense principle. Prayer Secret #2 is making sure that your prayer request always lines up with the will of God for your life.
I have a pet saying when it comes to this principle. The saying is, “Father always knows best.“ God always knows what is best for you in all situations – you do not! God’s knowledge and wisdom is always perfect – yours is not! God knows what all of your future will hold for you – you do not! Too many Christians are constantly asking God for things that He does not really want them to have.
Here is the main Scripture verse where this basic principle is being clearly stated for all of us:
“Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything ACCORDING TO HIS WILL, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.” (1 John 5:14)
Interpretation – God hears your prayer only if the prayer request is in His perfect will for you and your life. If it is not, then the above verse is implying that He will not hear your prayer, and thus will not grant the prayer request.
This is where each Christian has to really get a grip on any specific prayer requests they are presenting to God. If God comes back letting you know that what you are asking for is not in His perfect will for you and your life, then you have to let it go, trust that God knows best and move on.
When you approach God the Father with a specific prayer request – this is very serious business. You are asking God to bring something to you that normally would not be coming your way. You are asking God to supernaturally bring or allow this request to come your way through Him.
So the first thing you have to do before approaching God with your specific prayer request is to make sure that your prayer request is in His perfect will for you and your life. There are several ways you can do this.
1. Analyze Your Prayer Request
Sometimes it is quite obvious that the request is needed and in His perfect will for you and your life. You do not even need to pray about whether or not it is in His will for you and your life. The answer is already obvious and you can go ahead and shoot your prayer through.
A good example would be is that maybe you have just lost your job. You will now have to go to God and ask Him to lead you to the next new job He will want you to have.
Sometimes the request is not so obvious as to whether or not it is God’s will for you. Maybe you are dating someone and you would really like to marry this person. However, God has not voiced His opinion on the issue yet.
The way to properly handle this is to go to God and ask for His perfect will on the situation – whether or not you should marry this person. If you really love this person and really want to marry them, the best way to word your prayer is to tell God you would really like to marry this person, but only if it be in His perfect will for you to do so.
This way you are on safe ground with God in the way that you have worded the request. You have voiced your opinion on the matter, but you have also let Him know that He knows better than you do as to who you should be marrying in this life, and that you will not marry this person unless it is in His perfect will for you to do so.
2. The Holy Spirit
The other way to approach this is to simply ask the Holy Spirit if you should be approaching God the Father with the prayer request. I believe that the Holy Spirit knows most, if not all of the time, whether or not God will answer your specific prayer request. You can save yourself a lot of travailing and praying by getting the Holy Spirit’s answer before you waste your time and God’s time by praying on a certain issue.
For those of you who have established a good, inside connection with the Holy Spirit, the above is rather easy to do. You simply tap into Him, ask His opinion, and most of the time you will pick it up with an “inner knowing” from Him as to whether or not you should proceed any further in approaching God with the specific prayer request.
For those of you who have not yet established this kind of inner connection with the Holy Spirit, you can still go ahead and ask Him, and He will somehow get through to you as to whether or not you should be praying to God on a particular issue.
Now here are 3 short powerful stories that will really illustrate the importance of making sure that all of your prayer requests always line up with the perfect will of God for your life.
TRUE Stories
1. STORY #1 – About 10 years ago, a friend of mine told me this story and I will never forget it. One of her girlfriends had been dating a man for about two years. Everything was going great. She got to the point that she was now wanting to marry the man. She went before God and started praying, asking God if she should marry him. God came back with a one-line answer and the answer was, “He is sufficient for now.”
This type of an answer obviously was not good enough for her, so she kept pressing God for an answer as to whether or not she should marry this man. God came back with no further answers every time she asked. After about 6 months of continuing to ask God for His opinion on this matter and not getting any additional answers, she decided to make her own decision and marry the man without waiting for God’s confirmation or approval.
Six months into the marriage relationship, this man’s dark side all of a sudden started to emerge. He started to physically abuse her. The beatings got so bad that she had no other alternative but to divorce the man for fear he was going to end up killing her.
I have found from personal experience that whenever God is silent on a specific prayer request, this means to hold your position and do nothing until you receive further word from Him as to whether or not you should move in the direction that you are looking to move into.
Conclusion
1. As you can see from the above three stories, you can save yourself a lot of blood, sweat and tears when praying to God if you can pick it up ahead of time whether or not your specific prayer requests should be brought before Him for His consideration. This is the beauty of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. One of His jobs is to help us in our prayer life with God the Father.
The Holy Spirit will always know whether or not God will want to answer your specific prayer request. By connecting up with the Holy Spirit on a specific prayer request, you will go a long way in being able to decide when to approach God in prayer and when not to.
For those of you who have not got this far in your own personal relationship with the Holy Spirit in order to be able to pick Him up and read His movements, you can still approach both Him and God the Father before you attempt to pray and just simply ask God if it is His perfect will that a specific prayer request be put before Him.
I have found that God will always come through loud and clear on this issue. Remember, God wants to establish a loving, personal relationship with you – and in this personal relationship will be the benefit of being able to approach Him with your specific prayer requests.
2. God really wants to show you how to play the prayer game with Him. It is prayer that will pull down major miracles from God. You just have to learn what the ground rules are and how to play the game with Him. The Bible lays down all the ground rules that you will need to know in order to become a very effective and powerful prayer warrior.
For whatever reason, God has this thing set up in that He will not move many of the times on a certain situation unless we first go into serious prayer with Him. The art of prayer is a powerful tool in the hands of a Spirit-filled believer. God can be moved to answer prayer no matter how dire the circumstances. You just need the knowledge on how to properly approach Him in order to get Him to move on certain situations.
I think you will find the remaining prayer secrets very interesting, as they will all give you several different options and strategies in which to approach God with on your specific prayer requests. I believe with knowledge comes power. With knowledge will come the ability to know how to properly play the prayer game with the Lord.
I will leave you with one last thought. One of the benefits of having established a true, personal relationship with God the Father is the ability to be able to approach Him with your specific prayer requests. Think of the consequences and the possibilities of this privilege that we now have with God the Father.
God the Father has the full supernatural power to do or accomplish whatever He should so desire. The Bible says that “With God NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE.”
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