Have you ever prayed a prayer you didn’t fully understand what you were actually praying?

Just me? Okay… let me share a story with you. I was telling this to one of my friends about a month ago.

Last year, I attended a women’s bible study that one of my friends (the same one I shared this story with recently) had put together. While there one of the ladies said something that has stayed with me ever since:

“Sometimes we don’t want a move of God because we don’t want to lose our pigs.”

We had been reading in Matthew 8, it’s where Jesus cast out a legion of demons out of a man and into a herd of pigs. The pigs rushed down the hillside into the water and drowned. Instead of celebrating the freedom of the man who had been delivered, the townspeople focused on what they had lost.

I remember thinking, Wow… that’s really good. And I wrote it down in my notebook.

On my way home that night, I prayed:

“God, if there are any pigs in my life keeping me from a move of You, drown them.”

Seemed like a great prayer. (And it was!)

However, I didn’t fully realize what that prayer meant. And that there would be consequences to that prayer.

Because if we are all honest with ourselves, most of us would say that we want God to move while keeping everything comfortable. We want healing, but we don’t want the process. We want growth (there’s that word again!), but we don’t want the stretching. We want God to open new doors, but we don’t want Him closing any of the doors we’re already comfortable walking through.

At least, that was how I was.

The following months pushed me outside my comfort zone. My pastor was preaching on growth constantly. Looking back, I can see God moving all through it, but I mainly noticed how uncomfortable I was.

And to be honest, I hated a lot of it.

I have mentioned in several posts how much I hate growth. Not because I don’t want to be the person God is calling me to be. I just really don’t like the process. AT ALL.

Growth is uncomfortable.

Healing is uncomfortable.

Trusting God when you don’t know what He’s doing is uncomfortable.

The last year has included things I never imagined I would do. Finishing my degree. Starting graduate school. Changing careers. Starting this blog. Sharing parts of my story publicly. It’s not pretty.

None of those things felt comfortable.

Most of them felt terrifying.

As I thought more about the story in Matthew 8, another part stood out to me.

After Jesus delivered the man, the townspeople begged Him to leave. BEGGED.

That has always seemed strange to me.

A miracle happened. This man had been crazy. He would walk around the tombs, where he was sleeping, naked. He would terrorize the townspeople. They couldn’t even chain him up. They tried. But the man would break them. And then when Jesus delivers the man, the townspeople see him sitting there, clothed, and in his right mind, and they beg Jesus to leave.

All I could think about was, “What other works of healing or deliverance did they miss out on because they begged Jesus to leave?”

And that is a scary thought. It is also very convicting.

How many times did I miss out on a move of Him because I didn’t want to lose something? Particularly, my comfort.

“What would everyone think?”

But I prayed the prayer. And He certainly answered. I have prayed that prayer many times in the last year. Every time that sentence went through my mind, I would ask God what there was in my life that needed to be “drowned.”

When I told this story to my friend at lunch, she laughed and said, “I would’ve been too scared to pray that prayer.”

And quite honestly, I probably would have been too if I had realized what it meant and what the next year would look like.

But I have reached a time in my life that I would have still prayed it. Because the main lesson I am continually learning is this:

I don’t want to be so attached to my comfort, my plans, my fears, or my “pigs” that I miss Jesus.