Luke 17:1-37
"And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith." Luke 17:5
Has anyone ever told you to be careful what you pray for? I've heard all my life that you shouldn't pray for patience, because God will send you trials that will teach you to be more patient. But what if you really need patience?
The apostles knew that they needed faith, and they asked Jesus to increase their faith. To me, that sounds a little like praying for patience. If your faith is going to increase, it's going to have to be tested and proven. So that's a hard prayer to pray.
But the prayers we usually need to pray the most are the ones that are hard to pray - for example, if you are having a hard time in a relationship with a dear friend, do you pray for God to change her or do you pray for God to change you? We should pray, "Change ME, Lord." We should pray, "Increase MY faith, Lord." We should pray, "Fill ME, Lord."
Why don't we pray this way? Is it because we are afraid to change? Is it because we don't want to admit that we need to change? I think its both.
So I challenge you today - pray for God to increase your faith. He tells us in Luke 17:6 (and Matthew 17:20) that if we have faith the size of a mustard seed that nothing will be impossible to us. Do you know how big a mustard seed is? It's about the size of a pen point. Imagine what we could do if we really had faith! Imagine what we could do with a big faith!
Sure, prayers like that are hard because they usually require us to do some work, but I think the reward is worth the effort, don't you?
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