Welcome to do it? Yes, he will. Welcome to Sizzy Larson Live Sunday edition. I love this time where it's just you and me,

snuggling up with a cozy cup of something and leaning in and having some one-on-one conversation.

I'm doing a series on the powerful aspects of prayer. I'm drawing from my book,

Your Powerful Prayers, Reaching the Heart of God with a bold and humble faith.

Last weekend I talked about how to pray without

condemnation. I want to continue that thought, but also to look at how easily it is for us to lose

our way and how not to lose our way. Brennan Manning writes this when he talks about God's

transformational love. He says, yes, the gracious God, and fleshed in Jesus Christ,

loves us. Grace is the active expression of his love. The Christian lives by grace as Abba's child,

utterly rejecting the God who catches people by surprise and a sign of weakness, the God incapable

of smiling at our awkward mistakes, the God who does not

accept a seat at our human festivities, the God who says, you'll pay for that, the God incapable

of understanding that children will always get dirty and be forgetful, the God always snooping

around after sinners. Jesus, he brings good news about the father, not bad news. We need a new kind of

relationship with the father that drives up fear and mistrust and anxiety and guilt that permits us

to be hopeful, in joyous, trusting, and compassionate. We have to be converted from the bad news to the good

news, from expecting nothing to expecting something

i often say that when we don't really know who god is and we really don't know who we are we will pray

like orphans we beg we plead we stress i don't know about you but when i've prayed from

those places when i forget who I am,

and I forget who I'm talking to, and I'm just whining and begging because I'm anxious or nervous or afraid, I don't ever feel better when I get up from those prayers. That's what I call praying from beneath your circumstances. I want to talk about praying from above your circumstances, and hear me now. I'm not at all saying you dictate to God. I fear God. We don't dictate to him. He dictates to us. When I say praying from above your circumstances, you're still being honest about your hardship, but you're wrapping it up in a promise, saying, you know, Lord, this has been a stressful week. But I know that you're the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Lord, that person is breaking my heart. But you say no weapon formed against me will prosper.

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