I'm Not Seeing It How God Sees It

How What I See Differs From What God Sees

Introduction to the 30 Thousand Foot Prayer – Part 9

Now that the preliminaries are out of the way, where we’ve discussed: the basics of prayer, a few myths about prayer, the problems with prayer, we’ve defined what prayer is and what it isn’t, getting a prayer answered and how you stand in the way of having your prayer answered. That’s a lot and it’s just the tip of the iceberg. We now can begin to really go deep into what I call the 30-thousand-foot prayer.

Take a plane ride with me.
As you ascend into the clouds with me, I’m always amazed by what things look like on the ground. Often times, I can see my entire city. Other times, we can see the different landscapes and land boundaries. Other times you can see hills, mountains, and bodies of water. When the plane reaches about 30 thousand feet, can you picture what cars and highways look like? Cars and highways are itsy bitsy. Everything on the ground at this level looks very small and manageable. It can be like this when you pray. What you’re asking for at a high-level in your thinking is small and manageable. What you don’t know is that everything looks small and manageable to God. The problem comes when you’re on the ground. What’s visible for miles and seems so tiny from above the clouds is not so tiny nor so manageable. The same is true with your big prayer requests. We often make the mistake of asking for a 30-thousand-foot request and forget to concentrate on the requests that are at ground level. More on that later.

Let’s put some things into perspective and do a little size comparisons.

This is what the LORD says: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. – bible.com/bible/116/ISA.66.1.NLT

To God, the earth is small in comparison to who He is. He calls the earth where we live His footstool. This includes our problems and requests. God has a way of seeing our world as small while we don’t have this same vantage point. We can only get a glimpse of how God sees our world from a 30-thousand-foot ascent in an airplane. Even our entire lifetime is small to Him. Listen to this. He calls man’s lifetime but a breath even when some of the men He created lived upwards of 900 years.

O LORD, what are human beings that you should notice them, mere mortals that you should think about them? For they are like a breath of air; their days are like a passing shadow. – bible.com/bible/116/PSA.144.3-4.NLT

Take a prayer journey with me.
Our journey to answered prayer, comes not when we’re in the air, but when we hit the ground. From high above, we see the big problem all at once, it seems simple, small, itsy bitsy, but it’s larger than it appears from 30-thousand-feet, much larger. On the ground things look much bigger and unmanageable, like eating an elephant. What were you thinking when you made this request? I know what, like every other normal human being you thought you could get by without doing any work. Make the request and cancer goes away instantly, not to say that it can’t. You wanted your marriage restored with just a simple request to God. You wanted your financial problems to disappear with the laying-on-of-hands by your pastor. These are just a few examples of a typical 30-thousand-foot prayer.

Listen to what God says to Job to give him a perspective into the size comparison dilemma between us and God.

“Then the Lord answered Job:

Do you realize the extent of the earth? Tell me about it if you know!” – bible.com/116/job.38.1,18.nlt

God in speaking with Job, gave him a clear picture that the extent of earth in Job’s sight is great. You see we see things differently from how God sees it. We see from the ground.

What does 30-thousand-feet have to do with prayer; my prayer receiving the answers I expect? It’s time you asked this question for yourself. Staying at 30-thousand-feet will make sure you don’t see what’s happening on the ground. It’s what’s happening on the ground that needs your attention. It’s the work on the ground that has the potential of changing the landscape you see from 30-thousand-feet above. It’s on the ground where there’s much ground-work to be done. Let’s take a closer look by descending to ground-level, the smallest level you can see or touch that can have major impacts on the 30-thousand-foot request you’ve made with prayer. This is huge; are you ready?

More on this next week as we take a closer look into this concept of the 30-thousand-foot prayer.

Thanks for visiting NoLongerCommon.com. Until next week, forward this message to as many people as you can.

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