The Best Prayer I Ever Prayed

By Taisa Efseaff Maffey


I have a notecard stuck inside the front cover of my Bible.  It says, “Prayer is not the way to get God to do our will in Heaven.  Prayer is the way to get us to do His will on Earth.”

This is one of those pithy sayings that we hear and nod our heads in understanding, but it can easily lose its meaning in the practice of everyday life.  I think we have a tendency to default to the idea that praying to God is equivalent to rubbing a magic lamp and expecting a genie to pop out and grant us our wishes.  Is that really God’s role in our lives?  To wait around until we ask Him for what we want and then jump-to?

This is not to say God doesn’t answer prayers or that He does so resentfully.  Rather, what I’ve learned in my own prayer life is that I often miss the point of the whole thing.  I can become so focused on asking for what I want that I don’t leave room for the possibility that I’m not actually asking for what God wants for me.  I don’t stop and ask myself if I’m actually praying for the right things.

“Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.  And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him” (1 John 5:14-15).

I learned this Scripture several years ago as a young adult – not by reading it but by struggling against it.

I had been going to my church at the time for a year or so, but it wasn’t really until I graduated from high school that I became more involved by actually meeting people, joining the college group Bible study, and serving in the children’s ministry.  I loved my church.  I received great Bible teaching, made wonderful friends, and felt very much at home there.

But.

It’s strange how your environment and the people who surround you can affect you without you even realizing it.  Being a part of this church blessed me in innumerable, lasting ways.  But there was one particular way the culture of the church influenced me that, in hindsight, wasn’t so good.

By and large, young people made up the church – young families, young couples, young singles.  Being that so many people were in these young stages of life, there was naturally a lot of focus on the big milestones that happen during those stages.  Dating.  Engagement.  Marriage.  Baby.  Baby #2.  Baby #3.  To homeschool or not to homeschool?

Don’t get me wrong, these are not bad things.  They are wonderful events and crucial decisions in the course of life.  But from where I was sitting, they turned into excessive preoccupations for a lot of people.  As for the demographic that I fell into, the preoccupation was with getting married.

As soon as I started attending the weekly college group Bible study, I noticed the air was constantly abuzz with excitement, attached to the likelihood that one’s future spouse could be present in that very room at that very time.  Marriage came up as a frequent topic in college group, in smaller, private gatherings, on mission trips, and in personal conversations.  It was the big question: WHO are YOU going to MARRY?

I know, none of this is very shocking.  It may not even be at all unusual.  But being in an environment where there was so much emphasis on getting to the next stage of life felt like being in a video game where everyone is running through gold coins to get to the next level.  Previously, I had no notion of getting married so young.  But suddenly, there I was at church, at college group, at any church gathering, scanning the room for my future husband.

And I prayed about it.  A lot.  I prayed that God would show me whether I was supposed to marry this person or that person.  Deep down, I don’t think I actually wanted to get married at that time, but I was somehow convinced that was where my life should be headed.  After awhile, after not meeting my future husband and not getting married, I grew discontent.  Being around all these other people who wanted Marriage so badly had convinced me that I should have this thing too.  But I wasn’t getting it.

One day, I finally “got it.”  Instead of praying that God would show me who I was supposed to marry, I prayed that God would give me the desires for what He wanted me to have.  I finally stopped asking for what I thought I wanted and instead decided that I wanted whatever God’s plan was for me.  I was so tired of having those unfulfilled desires.  I remember praying something like, “I want to want what You have for me, Lord.”

That is the best prayer I ever prayed.  Because I knew that if God gave me the right desires, then I would pray for the right things, then He would answer my prayers, and I would get what I want from the new desires – the right desires – He had given me.

“Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.  And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him” (1 John 5:14-15) (emphasis added).

As I continued praying in this new way, some neat things started happening.  Gradually, my desire to get married subsided and was replaced with appreciation, even enthusiasm, for being single.  I suddenly saw my single status as synonymous with opportunity and freedom.

God soon gave me the desire to go back to school.  Not only did He give me the desire, but He also provided me with the funds for tuition, ideal living arrangements, and a few random scholarships (just for fun, I think).  For the next three years, I had a truly rewarding, blessed college experience that I am still so thankful for.

After I graduated from college, God gave me the desire and opportunity to go on to grad school in Boston.  I’d had romantic notions of moving to Boston since I was a kid, and I actually got to do it!  My time there ended up being cut short, but now I will never wonder “What if…?”.

After I moved back home to Oregon, God gave me the desire (I already had the freedom!) to move to California and connect with extended family down there.  I did, and I loved it.

A couple months after I had moved to California (four years after I changed my prayer life), God gave me a new desire.  It was a surprising desire to get to know this guy my sister had been trying to set me up with for awhile.  I had previously refused her attempts, but she had told me just enough about him that I was intrigued to know more.  So I sent him a Facebook message.  And he wrote back.

Photo by Marina Koslow

“Trust in the Lord, and do good;

Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.

Delight yourself also in the Lord,

And He shall give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the Lord,

Trust also in Him,

And He shall bring it to pass.”

-Psalm 37:3-5