Prayer is such a mystery! Sometimes you pray and get an answer right away. Other times you pray and get nothing… no, “yes”… no, “no”… or in the silence, “just wait.”
I wanted to share a memory of an experience like this… it's about a promise God had given me a couple years prior… I just knew the time had come and He was fulfilling it… just the way I wanted it to be.
I had it all worked out in my mind... how I felt God was doing this thing He had promised! I built myself up believing that this was it… God is going to give me just what I want, how I want it! Don’t you know, God needed my help to figure this all out! :) Don’t throw stones… you know you’ve all done that too!
After all… whose promise was this anyway? God’s promise! Here’s the thing… He gave it to me, BUT I had lost track of the truth that He would fulfill it in His time, how He knows is best, in a way I could NEVER imagine!
Knowing that now is great... being on this side of it looking back. But it was very hard, I mean VERY HARD to deal with at the time! It was days of getting through my feelings of disappointment, anger, even mourning!
I can admit it now, I acted like a spoiled brat! Yes, my heart was hurting! It was broken! And I know God knew that, but my reaction to my devastation was not pretty!
My inner, tumultuous conversations with Him went something like this… “I don’t feel like You are hearing me!”… “I don’t feel like You care that this is what I want!”… “I don’t feel You see what an opportunity this is to bring You glory!”… “I don't feel like any of it matters to You anyway!” Like I said, not a bit of beauty in my attitude.
After I spent a few days wallowing in my muddy emotions… God sent someone to reach out to me… just the act of caring helped some of the dark clouds to be pushed away. I knew my time of “mourning” had to be finished. So I asked God to show me what was causing me to react in such a way. I asked Him to reveal to me what that “black blob” was in my heart.
And here’s the thing… when we ask… the Holy Spirit will shine His light on your heart so you can see what yuck is there! For me, it was a blob of my tangled up feelings! I let my feelings and emotions be used as a weapon against myself!
He also showed me that it is not about my feelings, but it is about God’s Truth! So here is a little of that Truth… God did create our emotions for a reason! Feelings and emotions are to be a gauge not a guide! What an ugly mess we can easily get ourselves into when we live by our feelings and not by God’s Truth.
Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. ~ 1 Peter 1:13
So why am I sharing all of my spiritual ugliness? I would just as soon forget it and move on, but in James 5:16 it says –
Confess your faults to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
I know that it is only in my helplessness God will be glorified! It is in these grievous trials the genuineness of our faith is tested.
Maybe someone reading this is going through a similar struggle. Maybe God wants to use this part of my story to bring Him glory!
Without a test you will never have a testimony!
Maybe we need to pray more for each other. All I know is it’s really not about me, but about what Christ is doing through me and through each one of you.
Someone said to me recently, that this is the time for boldness… boldness for Christ. Are we ready to be bold?
“He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” Ephesians 3:16-21
Someone said to me recently, that this is the time for boldness… boldness for Christ. Are we ready to be bold?
“Prayer works because God is in control. The basis of all miracles is God's sovereignty. Why does He do one and not another? Because God is in control. We have to trust His wisdom and His goodness.” – Rick Warren
So yes... prayer is a mystery, but God’s Truth is not… He is our Provider (Genesis 22:14), our Healer (Exodus 15:26), our Protector (Exodus 17:15), our Peace (Judges 6:24), our Shepherd (Psalms 23:1), He is good (Psalms 86:5), He is just (Isaiah 30:18), He is faithful (1 Corinthians 1:9)… to name just a few.
In His Grace,
Carin