Prayer: what do I really long for?

OK. So we pray, "God what do you want to do?"

... if you're me, it's probably super hard to pray that way, because admitting that God might have a better plan than you, even though he's God and that's a "duh," is just difficult. More so than that, submitting to his will, without knowing what it is, rather than just intellectual ascent that "oh yes, you might actually be wiser than me," is antithetical to most of us super competent control-freak types... kinda like starting a snowball fight in Florida in August. It's not that you don't want to; it's just that you're really not sure how to go about doing that, or if it's even possible...

But we've gotten there. Freak low-pressure system. Snowballs in August. We're submitting...

Now what?

Here's the crazy, absolutely nutty part of prayer... about 75% of the time, when I finally reach this point, of being willing to submit to God's will, asking him what he wants to do, he will turn the question around on me:

"OK, KG, what is it that you really long for?"

And you would think it would be an easy question to answer... right? But here's the nuance: God still isn't asking for my plan, he wants to know my heart-longing. My plan would be easy; my heart-longing requires me to trust him with my deepest desires that even I, on a real level, don't really expect to come to fruition.

But such is the nature of God: He is more concerned with being known by you and knowing you, than he is with the details and plans by which we govern and structure our lives.

Put another way: he gives us our daily bread, he covers our nakedness with garments of skin, he provides manna in the desert, and he gives marching orders for war, betrothals, and crossing the Red Sea, but that is NOT the meta-narrative of scripture and neither is it his greatest desire for our lives.

No more fig leaves. What is it that you really long for? It's a harder question than you think it is... it is NOT praying the correct prayers or finding something that sounds good or righteous... in fact, the opposite, it's about stripping off the "look good" layers and standing in our nakedness and need before God.

But when you reach that point, such are the prayers that God delights to answer... because prayers than come from that place of deep trust and vulnerability are prayers of the heart, not prayers of circumstance or fear or obligation or duty or control. Such are the prayers of a child to their Holy Father in heaven:

This is me, totally unashamed in my need, I have no where else to go, no one else to turn to for this, I cannot supply this on my own. I will still trust you, if you do not answer, but this is what I long for: Father would you hear me?

I trust you. But I'm still learning, Abba... this is hard for me.