Seeking God’s Favor

May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us.  Psa. 90:17

I’ve been getting off-track lately.  I’ve found myself distracted by worldly things that have taken my attention away from God.  I found myself fighting with God, resisting Him and wandering out of His will.  I began to choose my will over His too often.  Its hard once you get in this place to get back out again.  I was so frustrated with myself for doing this but I could not seem give up doing what I wanted to do and making bad choices.

Then a couple of readers lately have made comments on the same post I wrote from almost three years ago!  I was wondering why, and then finally God got through to me.  The post is entitled, “Making God’s Will My Heart’s Desire“.   I need to listen to my own message!  lol  I need to again pray for God’s will to be my heart’s desire.  We don’t naturally want to give ourselves to God and to choose His will.  We have to pray for Him to give us these desires.  So I began to pray that prayer again.  Why did I stop?  It seems so obvious now.  But yet it eluded me until God reminded me.

Then I opened up to this verse: “May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us…”  That spoke to me, and suddenly I felt a great urge for it to be true of me.  I wanted God to find favor in me and be pleased with me.  I was not acting in a way that was pleasing to Him, but yet I wanted to be pleasing to Him.  And somehow by praying that prayer seems to make it true or make it able to be true.  Maybe just the desire to please Him is pleasing to Him!   And of course the other side of this is praying for it makes it possible for Him to begin to change us so that we actually do pleasing things as well.

So I have prayed for Him to find favor in me, just like the man who wanted Jesus to heal his son who had an evil spirit but had trouble believing that Jesus could do it.  Jesus in effect asked if he believed He could heal him.  Knowing the truth about Himself, but wanting to do what was right, he said,  “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”  (Mk. 9:24)  I love this man’s honesty.  He didn’t currently possess what would please Jesus, but asking Jesus to help him overcome that which he lacked was in itself pleasing to God. 

So I pray Jesus, make me pleasing to You.  May I find favor with You.  Let me see with Your eyes and hear with Your ears.  Make Your will my heart’s desire again so that my only pursuit in life is to please You and to obey You.  Living outside of Your will is scary and miserable.  I enjoy being here with You, safe within Your will.  Help me to not be resistant to You, but to stay in Your will and seek to please You each day.   In Your Name, amen.

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty…He will cover you with His feathers and under His wings you will find refuge…  Psa. 91:1-2,4

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