This morning, I found myself thinking about some of the prayers I used to pray.

Not the prayers I pray now.

The old ones.

The ones I prayed when I was younger and life looked very different. The ones that felt so important at the time that I couldn’t imagine being okay without the answers I was asking God for.

I remember how certain I was about some of them.

I thought I knew what I needed.

I thought I knew what would make things better.

I thought I knew what I wanted my life to look like.

And then life happened.

Some prayers were answered in ways I never expected. Some were not answered at all, at least not in the way I had hoped. And some simply disappeared from my prayers somewhere along the way.

I don’t think I noticed when it happened.

One day I realized I wasn’t asking God for those things anymore.

Not because they had become unimportant.

I think I had simply become different.

There are prayers we outgrow because we outgrow the person who prayed them.

What once seemed so important can become strangely distant. The things we once thought would finally make us happy may no longer hold the same promise. The things we once asked God to change may be things we have learned to accept.

And sometimes, what we ask God for now has very little to do with what we once wanted Him to give us.

I think there is something beautiful about that.

We don’t always notice our own growth while it is happening.

Sometimes we only see it when we look back and realize that the things that once consumed our prayers no longer occupy the same space in our hearts.

Maybe that’s one of the quiet ways God changes us.

Not always through some dramatic moment where everything suddenly becomes clear, but slowly, almost imperceptibly, until we realize we are no longer asking for the same things.

I have compassion for the woman who prayed those old prayers.

I don’t look back at her and think she didn’t understand.

She was simply praying from where she was.

She knew what she knew.

She carried what she carried.

She wanted what she wanted.

And God met her there.

I think He does that with us.

He isn’t disappointed by the prayers we eventually outgrow.

He was there when we prayed them too.

Perhaps some prayers were never meant to become permanent.

Perhaps they were simply honest prayers from one season of our lives, spoken by a person who had not yet seen what the next season would bring.

And maybe that is why I don’t want to be embarrassed by the things I once prayed for.

Those prayers were part of my becoming.

They tell me something about who I was, what I feared, what I hoped for, and what I believed I needed.

And when I look back at them now, I can see that God was doing more than I understood at the time.

He was not simply deciding which prayers to answer.

He was also changing the person who was praying.

Maybe that is what growing in faith sometimes looks like.

We begin by asking God to change our circumstances.

And somewhere along the way, without even realizing it, we begin asking Him to change us.

To give us wisdom instead of simply giving us what we want.

To give us peace instead of giving us control.

To teach us contentment instead of constantly giving us more.

To help us trust Him even when we don’t understand what He is doing.

Those are very different prayers.

And perhaps they come from a very different heart.

I still have things I ask God for.

Of course I do.

I still have hopes. I still have desires. There are still things I would love to see Him do.

But I think my prayers have become a little less about convincing God that my way is the right way.

And a little more about trusting Him with whatever comes next.

I don’t know exactly when that changed.

Maybe that’s the thing about growing.

We rarely notice it while it is happening.

We simply wake up one day and realize that the prayer we once couldn’t imagine living without has become a quiet memory.

And instead of grieving what we no longer ask for, we can be grateful for the person who once asked.

Because she was doing the best she could with what she knew.

And God loved her there.

He loves me here too.

Maybe that is enough.

To look back at the prayers we have outgrown and realize that even when we thought we were asking God to change our lives, He was quietly changing us.

And perhaps the most beautiful part is that we don’t have to know which prayer will be the one we outgrow next.

We just keep praying.

And keep becoming.

Until next time,