What You Do After You Pray Matters Too

Matthew Gottesman (0:05)

Welcome to The Niche Is You. My name is Matt Gottesman, at Matt Gottesman on Instagram, and this is my daily podcast where I create short, quick-hitting episodes to help you uncomplicate life, creativity, and the pursuit of your highest self. There's only main character energy here. Now let's get into it.

Welcome to episode 874, What You Do After You Pray Matters To. What You Do After You Pray Matters To. We're going to talk about why faith and responsibility were never meant to compete. And what I mean by that is that I think sometimes we can talk about prayer as though our responsibility ends once we've brought something to God, right? And I talk about that a lot too. People a lot of times ask me, like, what should I do? I'm like, bring it to God, bring it to God. And, but it doesn't end there, right? When we go to God, like, we can pray for the direction and provision, healing, all the things.

Opportunities, wisdom, right? For the relationship, business, family, finances, you name it, all of it. It matters. It does matter to bring all those things. I'd like to, in this episode, explore what happens after the prayer.

So here's a few thoughts that I draw down. This was actually a great episode I was putting together because I was really reflecting on each. And also coming up with a few examples because a few people have been asking through Instagram lately, like, hey, well, talk to me about some of your process, or like, what happens when I do pray? Or like, and I get it. I think there's, what I think is cool is the genuine curiosity about, you know, just what does that relationship look like? You know, and the first question I think is always asked, like, what kind of relationship would you want with God? And so a few thoughts I put here, which is sometimes the answer to the prayer doesn't remove our responsibility, but it reveals, right? And so, example, you prayed for reconciliation with someone, anybody, and now there's a conversation you need to have. Or it could be for financial stability, and now there's a budget you need to make. So you see the correlation? It's like, I'm going to pray. But so, and we're going to talk a little bit about this in the episode, how often at times I'll get just like a next step. So I remember starting about a year or two ago, maybe even longer than that.

I was coming to God for like, talking about like investing and stewardship with finance and all this stuff. And it was interesting. It was a little like, okay, just go look at this more. And I'm like, okay, cool. So I started learning more about investing and it was light. It wasn't like heavy or anything like that, or reach out to so and so, things like that. So sometimes when we pray, obviously we get the answer to move. Sometimes we don't, but sometimes we do.

And then also years ago, I remember when I was praying over finances, I actually had a wave come through me that was like, listen, start looking at wherever there's leaks, like subscriptions and things like that in the business that you don't even need, or maybe in your personal life. I'm like, I will do that. So I think that's the almost call and response with prayer and responsibility, right? Response ability. So maybe you prayed for an opportunity, now there's an application you need to submit, or like an email you need to send out. You prayed for your marriage, now there's an apology you need to give. You prayed for the business, and now there's work you need to do. You know? You ever see like, oh my god, I got so busy, all these clients came in, or all these like opportunities came in that actually aligned. And then all of a sudden, you say like, oh, I'm overwhelmed. I'm like, well, you know, good that they came in, now let's get to work. So prayer gives direction, and direction still asks something of you, right? So again, this isn't like prayer is passive, and surrender isn't avoidance, right? Trusting God doesn't mean refusing to participate in the life God's entrusted to us. So that's really bringing the two together. This is like teamwork dynamic. So in this episode, let's explore why prayer and participation belong together. And honestly, you know, it's funny, I put up a post on my stories last night that I've been saying for about three or four years, maybe even longer. I would say God is my CEO. I'm just running the plays. And it's like, hey, coach, what should I do next? I'll do this. Like, all right, I'm not really sure this makes sense, but, you know, okay, I know it will. And it does. And actually, the more you do it on a small scale, and this is one of the things I was actually talking about with my functional doctor, he and I were talking about the obedience of small things. When you listen to a small step, and you actually listen, and then you act on it, and you do it more when they're small, you're building up a discipline for handling them when they're big. And that answer is a lot of the things that we're praying for, you know what I'm saying? So I also want to talk about how to recognize when the answer may be a responsibility rather than another revelation, right? Lord, I need another sign. Like, no, actually, son, you need to get to work. So another one is why surrender doesn't mean becoming passive about what is yours to carry. Also, how prayer should change the way we work, apologize, prepare, decide, and show up.