Different Things God is teaching Me

HIS MINISTERED MINISTERS

"Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the  gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water...Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” ~John 4:10 & 14

~

It was for a while that I thought it a little absurd when a friend of mine told me that the act of praying ministers to the self more than it does to God.
Yet as time has gone on, God has proven to my ignorant soul through both His Spirit and the experience, that my friend spoke Biblical truth. And not just that, but as the farther along I am mercifully led and guided in prayer by God, I find He is somehow revealing more about myself than I originally had thought and presumed I was "revealing" things to Him.

Perhaps this is not what we first experience and conclude on. I know I didn't and that's because I was a child (and in many ways still am) in my walk with the Lord; speaking more selfish gibberish that He was somehow still pleased with perhaps, because at least, I was imperfectly seeking Him as the answer and fulfillment of my needs.
Yet as we are all mercifully led and grown by our Heavenly Father, our prayers are also refined and shapes as we are; our thinking and focus and approach is sanctified and molded into a better more perfect instrument under the hand of this Divine Blacksmith. We are always being mercifully grown, purified and shaped into His purpose.
To give a few examples (as I am sure anyone could testify similarly) when I am in the middle of praying for someone to be delivered from sin, I am reminded (sometimes, not always like I ought to remember) that I am also needy of salvation and grace, especially if I am unaware of any stains or lack any conviction of discipline in my life.
In another case, I may be praying for someone who is battling something, and as I am calling-pleading God to aid and comfort them, He teaches me in that moment that my love and care for that person is but a sample/mirror/echo/expression of His already-abundant love and care for them. Rather than my heart having the possibility in lifting itself up with ungodly glory, self-approval and applause, my soul is both mercifully humbled by God and mercifully encouraged to know that needs and their fulfillment are not ultimately dependent on me but rather on Him. I am not to be the God-Bearer of this world but rather to be surrendered in humility and contentment to be one of many instruments in His hand; not only to be minister but also to be ministered to, by Him.

~~~

"God, Who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things." ~Acts 17:24-25

“Hear, O My people, and I will speak, O Israel, and I will testify against you; I am God, your God! I will not rebuke you for your sacrifices Or your burnt offerings, Which are continually before Me. I will not take a bull from your house, Nor goats out of your folds. For every beast of the forest is Mine, And the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the mountains, And the wild beasts of the field are Mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you; For the world is Mine, and all its fullness. Will I eat the flesh of bulls, Or drink the blood of goats? Offer to Me thanksgiving. And pay your vows to the Most High. Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me.” ~Psalm 50:7-15