Intentional Prayer: Are You Asking the Right Way to Align with God’s Will?

Today we're talking about a topic that was requested by one of my dear sisters in Christ,

intentional prayer.

What does it mean to pray with intention?

Are we just trying to get what we want,

or are we truly seeking to align ourselves with the will of God?

So today I'm going to explore intentional prayer,

what it really means,

why our motives matter,

and how our relationship with God should shape the way we pray.

I'll share some personal stories,

scripture and reflections to help guide us through this important topic.

We'll discover how prayer becomes powerful when it's sincere,

loyal, and rooted in trust.

Welcome to Born to Be a Butterfly,

where we embrace healing and growth in Christ so that we can experience true transformation.

My name is Nina Pajones, and I pray that this episode ministers to you.

When I asked the Lord about intentional prayer,

he put it on my heart to say,

they're worried about intentional prayer,

how to pray to get what they want to receive,

but they need to look at their motives for reaching out to me.

I was driving in my car when the Lord put that on my heart.

And immediately afterwards I thought to myself,

I think I've heard that in Scripture.

So as soon as I got to work, I got on my Bible app and I looked it up. I looked up the word motives and prayer,

and I wound up finding this piece of scripture,

which is James 4. 3.

And we're going to hear something very similar.

I'm going to read it to you now so you could hear what I'm saying.

When you ask,

you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

James is telling us that our motives matter when we focus on pleasing ourselves before pleasing the Lord.

Our motives are wrong.

They're backwards.

God cares more about why we ask than what we ask.

A common trap we can fall into is the if you prayer.

If you do this, Lord,

I'll do that.

For example,

you might pray.

If you help me get this job, Lord, I promise I'll read the Bible every day.

If this is you, sister,

please believe me when I say I am not trying to shame you.

I have done the same exact thing as have many of your sisters.

We all can very easily fall into the if you trap.

It's not like we're trying to bargain with God,

or at least we don't mean to.

It's just that we're trying our best to get what we need.

So again,

don't feel bad if you've done this. I have, and many other people have as well.

But what Scripture is telling us here in James is that it's not the right approach.

We have to check our motives.

It can't be that we give something to get something.

Our relationship with God is not supposed to be transactional.

It's supposed to be transformational.

God is far more concerned with sanctifying our souls than satisfying our desires.

Now let's head over to Hebrews 11, 6 NIV and without faith, it is impossible to please God because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek Him.

To pray intentionally is not just about asking clearly.

It's about believing deeply.

Believing that God hears us,

sees us,

and rewards those who earnestly seek Him.

Are you earnestly seeking the Lord?

The definition of earnestly is doing something with sincerity and intense conviction.

Are you seeking our Savior every day,

or is your prayer life more of an afterthought?

Please understand,

I'm not judging you. If that's the case. Again, we've all been there.

Life gets busy, and sometimes prayer winds up becoming our last resort when it should be our first choice.

The only thing we're doing here is taking a look at our habits.

It's very easy to get into bad habits.

It doesn't make you a bad person.

It doesn't make you a bad daughter.

It just means you need to focus on scheduling more time with our Lord and Savior.

So I say that to say,

don't be too hard on yourself if you hear any of yourself in what it is that I'm saying right now.

Because if your other sisters in Christ are being honest with themselves and if I'm being honest with myself,

I know in my walk with the Lord that I have found myself doing these things.

And there's no need to be ashamed,

because that's not what this is about.

Growth is good.

There's nothing wrong with learning how to do things better.

It doesn't mean that what you did didn't matter.

It doesn't mean that what you did wasn't an honest effort at the time.

If the season was that busy, maybe it was.

So if it was,

give yourself grace.

I know I've had to in my walk.

If I didn't want to stay stuck in what I was doing so that I could move on faithfully with the Lord,

I had to give myself grace.

I had to say, nina,

you did the best you could with what you could at that time.

But now it's time to step things up a bit.

And then that's what I would do.

We're all learning and we're all growing.

I'm going to jump over to John 15, 7, 9, 10 NIV if you remain in Me and My words remain in you,

ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.

As the Father has loved me,

so I have loved you.

Now remain in my love.

If you keep my commands,

you will remain in my love,

just as I have kept My Father's commands and remain in his love.

Notice the if if we remain in him,

if His Word remains in us,

if we keep his commands,

Jesus is telling us that intentional prayer begins with intimacy and obedience.

When we live with conviction in Christ,

we can ask whatever we wish and it will be done for us.

And now I'm going to head over to Jeremiah 29 verses 12 through 13.

NIV Then you will call on me and come to me and pray to me,

and I will listen to you.

You will seek Me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

Jesus said that we will find him when we seek him with our whole heart.

He doesn't want half hearted efforts and lukewarm love.

The Lord wants His children to desire a relationship with him above all all other things.

He wants us to be devoted to him because he's devoted to us.

Prayer is the ongoing conversation of a steadfast heart and loyalty is the love language of the Lord.

Intentional prayers are fine.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with them.

We just need to make sure that our motives are pure and that our relationship with God is strong.

But I do want to warn you that when you ask for what you want,

the way that he gives it to you might look completely different than you anticipated.

I say this because the Lord has done that to me so many times.

Anything he gives you before you're ready for it can hurt you.

Even the good things.

Even the great things.

God is not going to give you something that will cause chaos in your life.

He's your Father.

He is a good father.

He's not going to do that.

So if you think I'll just make my prayers more specific and he'll give me what I want,

it's not about the request.

It's about what you're willing to do to be ready for what you want so that it doesn't hurt you,

so that it doesn't hinder your walk with him.

Please understand that a blessing given too soon will become a burden in those cases. The Lord's delay in delivering what you desire might seem like a denial, but it's not.

He's preparing you for the Present,

he wants to give you.

In what seems to be his silence, he might be saying,

you need to pray to me for many more months before I give you that.

Build your relationship with me,

follow me faithfully, and do what I'm calling you to do.

The Lord won't allow us to skip spiritual steps,

and we must keep that in mind when we put our requests before Him.

We need to shift from the mentality of please give me what I want to please give me what I need so that I may become who you want me to be.

For instance, if you want to be married,

maybe your prayer should be,

lord,

help me become a strong godly woman so I can attract the godly man of my dreams.

That's a great prayer because you're not only asking for what you want to receive,

you're asking to be made ready to receive it.

Also,

when we pray to the Lord,

we must make it a point to enter his throne room with thanksgiving and praise.

We should be walking in with gratitude before we ask him to give us anything.

I've come to find out on my journey that intentional prayer can actually be more general.

Hear me out when I say this because I know you must be thinking that's exactly the opposite of intentional prayer.

That's not true, though,

because it's about what you desire from the prayer.

If you desire to dictate how things unfold and how you experience life,

then a general prayer asking God for guidance isn't going to satisfy you.

Because your prayer life is not really about Him.

It's about you at that point.

Don't get me wrong,

Sister. I have prayed those prayers,

but I finally realized the error of my ways.

I'm going to refer to a recent personal experience to better explain what I'm saying.

Earlier this week, I prayed before I went to sleep like I usually do.

I wanted to pray to the Lord because I wanted to spend time with Him.

But I was also feeling really conflicted about certain things that were going on in my life,

and I was beyond frustrated.

So I said to the Lord,

you know what?

I don't even know what I want.

I just know that I want to feel better.

You're God.

I'm not.

I need your help so that I can handle this situation properly and gracefully.

I continued praying on, but I won't bore you with that part.

But I will tell you what happened.

The next morning I woke up with a great sense of peace.

And I didn't have that peace before I went to bed.

So I know that the Lord gave it to me.

And then the following day,

I woke up with a great feeling of power.

I just felt spiritually strong,

but I mean immensely strong.

Like, I can't even explain how strong I felt. It was.

It made me feel like I was 6ft tall. That's how strong I felt. And I was.

I remember standing up out of bed and I was like, what has happened?

What happened to me overnight?

It was just so amazing.

And again,

of course I knew it was God.

And of course I thanked him immediately.

He chose to give me two separate emotions,

but an abundance of both.

And he gave me each emotion on two separate days.

And when I tell you that, of course God knows exactly what he's doing.

Because the first day when I felt the peace,

that's exactly what I needed.

And the next day when he gave me that extraordinary feeling of power in my soul,

that was a day I definitely was going to need that as well.

My point is,

I wasn't trying to give God guidelines to get the results I wanted.

I simply trusted in Him.

I prayed with faith.

I knew that the Lord would deliver me one way or another.

I didn't need to know how he was going to do it.

I just knew that he would.

I knew it because of my testimony and track record with him.

I believe in God.

I believe in his goodness,

greatness, and righteousness.

My confidence does not come from having perfect words of prayer.

My confidence comes from Christ.

I've walked with the Lord long enough to know that peace and joy aren't found in the outcome.

They are found in the one who overcame the world.

So, yes,

pray intentionally,

but don't define intentional as specific.

Sometimes the most intentional thing you could do is say,

God,

have your way.

Now I'd like to ask you a couple of questions.

Number one,

what are the true motives behind your recent prayers?

Are you seeking God's will,

or are you simply seeking your own desires?

Number two.

In what areas of your life do you need to surrender control so you can pray with more trust and less fear?

Let's pray.

Father. God,

thank you for inviting us into an intimate relationship with you through prayer.

Help us to come before you not just with requests, but with reverence.

Purify our motives,

soften our hearts,

and align our wills with yours.

Teach us to trust you in the silence,

believe you in the waiting,

and seek you above all things.

In the mighty name of Jesus, I pray.

Amen.

If today's message spoke to you,

please share it with a friend and follow Born to be a butterfly so you never miss an episode.

If you'd like to learn more about my story of healing and transformation,

get my book From Broken to Butterfly on Amazon today.

If you have any questions or want to connect with me,

send me a DM on Instagram @ Born to be a Butterfly or email me at ninapajonas@gmail.com. I love hearing from you.

Until next time.

Remember,

the Lord can turn your wounds into wings.

You were born to be a butterfly.

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