How do I align my will with God?

Right out of college, I prayed really hard to get what I thought was my dream job.

I really wanted it.

And I didn’t get it.

I was devastated.

It was a really tough time for me to figure out what had gone wrong.

Have you ever prayed for something, and it didn’t happen?

From little “please help my baby fall asleep” prayers to much more serious and bigger prayers, it’s always a bit of a blow to not have a prayer answered the way we hoped it would be.

But I’m going to take a step back and get logical here:

That actually makes sense for not all of our prayers to be “granted”, right?

Even if we have righteous desires, we will never see the whole picture as Heavenly Father does.

In this instance with the job, God knew that I needed to find a different employment that would be perfect for my family and lead me to lifelong friends.

So why pray if we know not all of the things we desire in our prayers will align with God’s will?

Paul teaches us how the Spirit can help us know what to pray for!

“Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.” (Romans 8:26)

The Spirit can help us know what to actually pray for.

“Prayer is the act by which the will of the Father and the will of the child are brought into correspondence with each other.” —“Prayer”, Bible Dictionary

⁣It’s okay to pray for what we want.

But the Spirit can also help nudge our hearts toward what our Heavenly Father desires for us.

Our desperate prayers for a particular job all of a sudden start ending with “if it be Thy will.”

And then we feel prompted to start praying for new job opportunities to pop up.

And then we are praying for acceptance at a new job!

It can be a slow process, but a powerfully humbling one to see WHAT we pray for shifting over time as our sincere desires change.

One of the roles of the Spirit is that He can teach us what to pray for.

When we start changing our prayers into beautiful experiences where we listen to inspiration and follow the Spirit, we end up aligning our wills with God.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black