Pray, expect, go.

Those three words have become my mantra lately.

Pray: Pray to the God of the Universe.
Expect: Expect that he will hear your prayer.
Go: Expect that he will respond.

This is not my own idea. In fact, this idea is thousands of years old. I got it from the awesome story of Elijah.

He did a lot of wild things for the Lord during his lifetime. As most of the prophets of that era, he lived as a radical. The specific story I want to touch on is from 1 Kings 18. I highly encourage you to read it and base your learning off the Scripture and not my poor paraphrasing and summarizing.

Elijah is hanging out on Mount Carmel which if you've been to Israel you know that Mount Carmel is not piddly little hill. It is a mountain.

View from the top.

Anyways, Elijah is kind of in this prayer "battle" with the prophets of Baal. Essentially it's a sort of "anything you can do I can do better" battle. The prophets of Baal claim they can do this miracle, then Elijah shows them up with the power of God. This goes on and on until Elijah ignites the altar of the Lord after it has been drenched in water. They all fall to their knees in amazement. However, this isn't even the crazy part.

This whole time, in fact, three years previous to this time, the entire land has been under a terrible drought. It hasn't rained in years. After performing these wild miracles and signs, Elijah drops to his knees and begins to pray. He tells his servant to climb to the top of Mount Carmel and look for rain. Six times he sends his servant up, and six times the servant sees nothing.

The seventh time is different.

The seventh time, Elijah sends his servant to the top and far in the distance, the servant sees a rain cloud. Elijah prayed the drought would end. The drought ended.

He prayed. He expected. He went.

It's that simple... why is it so hard for me?