Not In MY Power

From time to time K-Love radio station will ask an artist to host a video devotional series which they post on-line. Their most recent one was from the lead singer of Tenth Avenue North. In his series, he went through the Lord's Prayer. Something he said in one of the devotions really struck me. Now bear with me, what he taught and what God showed me are related. not just in a way you might think.
      In this particular video, he spoke of the phrase dealing with forgiving and being forgiven. He said that often people think they are too bad to be forgiven. He pointed out that for us to say that is to tell God that He is wrong about forgiving us and that there is something we can do to earn forgiveness...which of course, we can't. Forgiveness is about what He's done for us, not what we do for Him.
     God used this idea to talk to me about the impossibility of this prayer. Early on in this journey God had to do some teaching over the idea that He wasn't interested in my perfect obedience to answer this, He was interested in my faith and faithfulness to answer this. Recently, that struggle has been resurrected. There is a sin in my life that I struggle with, one I fall to far more often than I desire. It is a struggle I have brought on myself and Satan has used it to batter me. My fear has become that God will not answer this request because I battle a sin, because my obedience is not perfect. God used the teaching from that video to show me that for me to think I have to have a perfect, sinless life for Him to answer is basically saying God will answer this request because of something I have done and that's not true. How many times have I prayed that God would allow nothing in this prayer to draw attention to me, that only He be glorified in it? If God answered this because I was perfectly obedient, then I would get some of the credit for the answer.  How have I missed this truth?
     God isn't going to answer this prayer because my obedience is perfect, He's going to answer it because HE is. He's going to answer it because He is true to what He promises. Now, that's not to say my actions don't have some bearing on God working, they do. I can not live a life of un-repented sin and expect God to answer. Isaiah says our iniquities have separated us from God and that He can't hear us with unconfessed sin...and that's the key...the sin must be confessed and an effort made to abandon it. God knows our nature, He knows how susceptible to sin we are. That's why, when you look at the conditions for answered prayer, they are all about believing and having faith, not about obeying perfectly. God will answer this, and it won't be because I've lived a life of perfect obedience. He'll answer because I have struggled to keep this sin from my life. He'll answer to show that it is HIS power and not mine that brought about an answer.