Prayer and Perseverance

Praise the Lord! Praise God in His Sanctuary; praise Him in His mighty heaven! Praise Him for His mighty works; praise His unequaled greatness! Praise Him with a blast of the ram’s horn; praise Him with the lyre and harp! Praise Him with the tambourine and dancing; praise Him with strings and flutes! Praise Him with a clash of cymbals; praise Him with loud clanging cymbals. Let everything that breathes sing praises to the Lord! Praise the Lord! [Psalm 150, NLT] 

Holy Spirit I have learned that to see a dream come into being, because of You placing it in our heart, we must first have a time of perseverance and prayer. We must take time to build the character needed to fulfill the dream. We have plenty of examples in Your word: Noah needed 120 years to build an Ark when it had never rained. Joseph had to be sold into slavery, suffer false accusations, and be in prison before he would rise to number three in power in Egypt and save his family from famine. Moses had to spend 40 years in the wilderness to learn to lead through the wilderness. Daniel had to suffer being a eunuch and a prisoner of another country for 70 years to learn how to lead and pray for his country to be freed. Jesus had to work in a Carpenter shop for roughly 30 years before his ministry would start. Paul, as Saul had to do many years as a Pharisee, studying as a student, to prepare him for leading missionary trips that would change the gentile world into believing in Jesus. No real dream is given in a minute. Even the Israelites had to march 7 days and 7 times around Jericho to see the walls fall. “Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint.” [Isaiah 40:31] 

Help me to prepare myself to fulfill my purpose in life by praying and persevering until it is time to do what I am destined to do. Help my character, my stamina, my desire, and my learning all cumulate into being exactly what You want me to be when You want me to live it. Help me to succeed and exceed all expectations because I have learned to wait on You, Your timing, and do it Your way. Let me live a life that will demonstrate to all others that I am nothing without You, but with You, I am a child of the Highest God and will not fail because nothing is impossible for my God who gives me strength, wisdom, understanding, and discernment.  

I pray and ask that I may be filled with the knowledge of Your will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that I may walk worthy of You, fully pleasing, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of You; strengthened with all might, according to Your glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified me to be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in the light. You have delivered me from the power of darkness and conveyed me into the kingdom of the Son of Your love, in whom I have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. You are the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by You, all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through You for You. And You are before all things, and in You, all things exist. And You are the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things You may have the preeminence. In Your blessed Son Jesus’ name, Amen. (Colossians 1:9-18)