Look Up to the Lord

“Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you." John 16:23b.

As you walk with the Lord, realising His promises to you, there comes a time you ask yourself where to draw the line between just having faith that God will do what He has promised you without necessarily asking Him for the obvious, and basically pleading with Him for everything, according to His Word. Sometimes you may ask yourself whether to ask for such and such a thing, that seems as an obvious expectation from the Lord according His promises, or just to keep moving and assume He’ll do it automatically. This question came to me a while back, and as I was meditating on it the answer came clearly from the Spirit: there should never come to a point where we cease looking up to the Lord, in humility, for anything.

Asking from God goes beyond telling Him, “please give me this.” If asking from God only means that to you, then you’ll be so limited in your prayer-life, and you take on yourself such a heavy burden of having to plead with God to give you everything you need (life, breath, good digestive and respiratory system etc.). One may say then that God expects us to plead with Him for the big things, and trust Him for the small things, without necessarily having to talk to Him about these small things. There is no ‘big’ or ‘small’ thing, with the Lord. Asking from God for everything means looking up to God for everything, in faith and reliance upon His faithfulness and Person. It means that sometimes you may not verbalise the requests of your heart, but your heart is so heavily inclined to God to give you this or that, whether ‘big’ or ‘small’, and trusting that He will do it. Many a times we’ll have to verbalise this, for our hearts to hear and also to help us exercise humility and dependence on God, but it always starts from the heart.

This is why you’ll see different types of prayer (asking from God), in the Bible: prayer of thanksgiving, faith, intercessory, supplication, petition, agreement, meditation, worship, praise etc. How do you choose exactly how to ask (look up to God), and for what? That’s the work of the Spirit; as we walk in intimacy with and dependence on Him, He’ll help us know how exactly to pray, and for what (Rom. 8:26-27).

David said, “I will lift up my eyes to the hills - From whence comes my help? My help comes from the LORD, Who made heaven and earth.” Psalm 121:1-2. This should be our position everyday and for everything, whether ‘big’ or ‘small’. We always ought to look up to Him in faith, as He is our Source; He is our everything.

Grace and peace to you!

Today's devotion was written by brother Sam Gitonga.