you're praying wrong.

Sometimes, I think, we approach God as this wealthy, crazy busy business man that I work for.

Sometimes, I go into prayer with this mentality of "OKAY, I only have this amount of time to convince you to give me everything I need, to convince you that I'm doing great and, wow, look at these profits! See, I'm doing good. SO good."

This is the Father's response to that mentality.

"Okay, that's great, but be still, because I already know what you think you need and I already know that you are good. You don't need to convince me."

I don't need to convince God.

I don't need to convince Him of what I need. Simply, I get to show Him my heart. I don't need to convince Him of my emotional state. Simply, I get to show Him my heart.

That's what prayer is.

That's literally all that prayer is. I show Him my heart, He shows me His. We rest in the secret place, not needing to do, but just being exactly who we both are. God does His God thing and I do my Annie thing.

Sometimes, do you wake up already exhausted? Already dreading, feeling less than, seeing the mountains of the day looming ahead?

We deprive ourselves of the peace He won for us as some sort of incentive to get it all done, to be enough. We need to do before we can be.

That comes from taking on the God identity, when you're meant to have the child identity.  Because actually: we need to be before we can do.

So often, we wake up, already partnering with this spirit of striving, and it's like we're already on this mad chase to get everything done, to thrust ourselves into the chaos of the day and WIN. When we start to pray, it's this: "Oh my gosh, Jesus, I have to get all these things done today and hi how are you but how in the WORLD is all of this going to work out?" and we feel less than until it's all done.

But even then-- is it ever enough?

Because, if you're like me-- there's some nights that you go to sleep and feel like you didn't do enough. There's some days that come to a close with a sinking feeling in your stomach, wondering if He's disappointed, if there's more that you should have done.

But who is setting these standards? Who is setting the terms of enough?

He says: be still.

While He wants us to come to Him with our need, He first and foremost wants us to just be. We don't need to throw words at Him, hoping that He'll see us, hoping that He'll decide to "fund our endeavors."

He's fully aware of your need. He's fully aware of your heart. You don't work for Him, you're loved by Him. He's already working all things for your good.

Prayer can be simple. I don't need to prove my worth to the One who has called me worthy, beyond anything I could possibly do.

Talking to the Father is simple. We can let down our guards. He's not looking to give us a to-do list or berate us about everything we're doing wrong; He just wants us to receive His love.

He's just a Daddy who wants to hold His child.

And that's another thing: receiving love is never a waste of time. Just being loved, just being told that you're worthy, is not a waste of time. Choosing to just sit and be leads to all kinds of crazy doing. But the most impactful doings come from heroically choosing to let go of striving and simply, be.

Just be. Come into prayer, find that secret place with Him, and be.

He just wants to love you. That's the point of it all. It's not even about miracles, or going deeper, or proving something.

He just wants to love you. And be loved by you, because He values you so endlessly.

On that basis, there's no way that you could have come up short at the end of the day, if you've just been loving Him. There's no way that you won't be able to do everything that He's calling you into because He provides in abundance.

Let's start our days rooted in this reality, rooted in the reality that we're already seen and loved and infinitely provided for.