Do you ever get tired of waiting for God to answer your prayers?
I do.
It isn't that I don't think He hears me, or that I don't believe He's at work to deliver the answer... it's just that the time between when I start praying for something, and when the final answer comes... is sometimes much longer than I am comfortable with, actually... it's usually MUCH MUCH longer than I am confortable with!
God knows that...
It's part of his plan to shape my faith and build my trust in Him. The things that I can't control, seem to be where He knows I need the most instruction. Instruction in HIS ways, which means learning to trust God more completely.
I have found this to be true...
Usually there are no quick fixes, shortcuts, or pat answers, and no fast 'getting there' on the prayers that are my deepest needs and longings...
It's IN THE PROCESS of my prayers and my waiting on Him, that He works into me what He knows I need. It also deepens my faith as I see how trustworthy he is.
Could God answer my prayers faster? It's an obvious 'yes' to that question. Of course He could, just as He could have come right down off of that cross and not died that day. God can do anything, But think of how quickly we forget a lesson learned when it drops right into our lap. We go out and do the same thing again, until we have seen that another way is better, usually through more than one series of trials and errors.
When God wants change in me, He does it His way... and He knows full well that it will require my dependence on Him, and obedience to what He is saying. I know how to 'take charge' of my life pretty well, so I am always having to learn His ways, often to re-learn them.
The truth is, I seem to need a lot of that instruction ... all the time.
We do NOT dig deeper and see God in new ways when things are only smooth, when our trust muscles are not required, at least I don't. I don't mean that we only grow as christians through hard times, but there is a deeper learning curve that God has designed in us to know him better, and it usually involves circumstances or situations where we must trust.
I am waiting, again, on some answers right now, you probably are too. I'm beginning to understand that I will always be waiting on something from God, and that in the waiting, this 'pot' is on His wheel, and He's shaping it into what He always intended!
"Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans." Rom.8:26-28
My husband is a collector, he has always collected something. When he was a boy, it was probably marbles, and other stuff that kids collect. Later it was model trains, cowboy stuff, fishing lures, etc. He still loves that old stuff, mostly because of the history involved, which he reads about and studies.
Among the things we have owned through the years, the quack medical machine was probably one of my favorites. It was a beautiful walnut case with a crazy metal contraption on the inside. It was made in the 1800's. The paper label on the inside lid read:
"Cures anything; on occasion, even death."
Seriously! They made some bold claims back then. I have my doubts about that machine curing anything at all, let alone death!
Quack medicine brings to mind other claims that we still hear about in today's world. There are a lot of products that make wild claims. For instance, the makeup industry. Have you ever fallen prey to one of those anti wrinkle cream claims? I sure have. When I was a teenager, I fell for the first one. It was a cream that promised to erase ALL wrinkles, within seconds!
It did...
The only problem was, when you applied it, it gathered all the skin on your face and tightened the whole thing so that all expression was removed... until I smiled, moved my eyebrows or blinked. Then the whole tight mask CRACKED and my face dissolved into 1000 wrinkles and tiny cracks. We still laugh about that cream.
Less obvious are the products I've tried since that time... there have been WAY too many! My husband laughed out loud when I brought home "Hope in a jar"...
The wrinkles are still there, and so are the creams I keep trying. Hope dies hard when it comes to removing wrinkles.
The moral of this story is that I keep trying and the makeup industry keeps advertising their claims and smiling... all the way to the bank!
I can hear my dad right now. He would come into a noise filled room with the 3 of us kids hollering about one thing or another, and very quietly he would say...
"Study to be quiet."
And then he gently closed the door, and went back to his office.
I don't think I ever paid much attention to actually studying to be quiet. We probably muffled our giggles since we were the culprits, and lowered the whole tone of the noise for at least a little while, but study to be quiet?? No, I did not.
study... contemplate, consider, deliberate, examine.
He was trying to get us to think about the word and what it means... study on it, improve in this area, practice it...
be quieter!
I think dad thought that if we at least paused and gave it an honest look, maybe we would all shush! Being quiet takes an effort, a study, a choice.
I sure get it now!
There are days when I realize that so many things I didn't think about back then, I LIVE by now!
Is that wisdom, or simply old age?
Or maybe it's the wisdom that COMES with old age.
('Old age' being a relative term, not necessarily applying to me!) ... :)
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.."In quietness and confidence shall be your strength, and ye would not"...
This is FAITH... our latest precious little one, born last Monday.
I've been there all week and she and GRACIE are happily bonding as new sisters!...
Remember Gracie was the little miracle baby, and now Faithie is the second miracle!
There are so many simple but powerful stories in God's Word. The simple stories hold my attention, they have through the years. These stories have the power to change our lives when we see their truth.
The disciples in the small boat, in the midst of the storm. Peter spots Jesus coming toward them and gets right out of that boat and walks on the water, his eyes riveted on Jesus. Then all of a sudden he remembers that the waves are crashing and the storm is raging, he panics, and his fear causes him to look away from Jesus... to the storm, and immediately he begins to sink.
Peter and I might be related...
I have identified with his actions and reactions many times in the Bible. I think 'oh no', as he begins to sink, but isn't it the same for us?
We are in the middle of one of life's storms, and praying our hearts out to make it through, to survive, and then Jesus shows up! We are so thrilled that we immediately walk toward Him...
The storm, however, has not gone away, and at the point we realize that... our eyes go back to the turbulence around us, away from Jesus, and down we go!
It always comforts me to see how much Jesus loved Peter. He knew his potential, and He knows ours.
We can be quickly caught up in the storm of the moment, and if we aren't careful, each new storm catches us by surprise, and our eyes shift to the problems rather than the Saviour.
Simple story? Yes. Life changing choices in how we respond? Yes. Even when the landscape doesn't change... where we choose to look makes all the difference.
I KNOW where His eyes are... I want mine to stay firmly focused on Him, in or out of the boat.
I've never met this family, but they live a few short blocks from where I live, and they are friends and former neighbors of our kids. Last Saturday, one of her 2 brothers found the body of little 3 year old 'Sammy' (Samantha) in their swimming pool..
I, like probably most of the people in our city, have shared their grief and prayed without ceasing for this family during these days. Today at 1 is the funeral at Lakepointe Church. As I was out doing errands this morning, I drove past our church and couldn't stop the tears as I thought of this mom and dad and the tiny casket that would be there in just a few hours.
As I thought of them last night, I began a note to let them know that I am praying for them. What God gave my heart as I prayed, was this...
"God knew exactly to the final second, how long Sammy's life would be, long before she was born. He also knew what parents and brothers she would be entrusted to for those short years. They would have to be very special, as He knew how deeply loved He wanted this child to be, and how short her time on this earth was going to be.
Doug & Ann, you were hand picked to be Sammy's mommy and daddy. What a life changing privilege for both of you, to be her parents, to love and cherish her and to be her family. Bryan and Ben, God knew Sammy would need 2 very special boys to be her brothers, and He put this exact family together... the family He chose. He could have chosen anyone, He chose YOU, all 4 of you.
Somehow, in all the pain, I pray that your comfort will also be that last Saturday, when Sammy went to be with Jesus, to be held in His loving arms, was the exact day that He had planned. Not a minute or hour sooner, or later. Nothing could change that, God had already ordained it... He knew.
The heart of our Father also understands the deep grief you are bearing. When He sent Jesus, He sent His only son, and He felt the pain of a fathers heart. He holds every tear that you shed, in a special place with your names on it.
Sammy will always be your little girl and your sister. When you get to heaven, you will be the ones she runs to."...
Somehow just sharing this helps. I ask for your prayers for this family. Pain strikes the grieving heart without warning, and they will have a long road ahead.
Knowing God, and knowing that He holds all of life in His hands, the beginning and the end, is going to be their strength, as it is for each one of us.
"It is no secret what God can do,
what He's done for others, He'll do for you"...
It's funny how hearing a song can take you back many years, to the time when it was written and you sang along with it.
Stuart Hamblen.
Stuart and Suzy Hamblen were friends of my parents as we were growing up. Stuart had been a country singer and spent some wild years before becoming a christian. Some of his best songs were written after he was saved. "It is no Secret what God can do"," This old house", and "Just a closer walk with Thee'...
When I think of those old songs, it always reminds me that his daughters clothes were given to us when they had grown out of them. We were the preacher's kids, (not the affluent preacher's kids.) Suzy knew that, and she loved my mother. They spoke together at women's conferences and formed a real bond as friends.
The thing is... those clothes were ultra stylish (ok, awful!)...
They lived in Hollywood, in the middle of fashion and glitz and labels. We lived in Pasadena, an hour away in miles, but 1000 miles from the styles of those clothes! Even though we didn't have a lot of money, we felt like what we wore was pretty cool...
I remember seeing that big box and thinking 'oh boy, this is going to be good!' I pulled one thing after another out, and got to the bottom of the box and couldn't imagine wearing any of it. The heart of the gift was real, but the gifts themselves didn't fit us at all, not size-wise and not the style either.
Even though the heart of a giver may be exactly right, as it was with them, sometimes the recipient of the gift isn't on the same page.
So, to this day. I still love to sing along with Stuart's music, as I think of 'the box'...
Today's thoughts are a brief detour, not permanent, just a visit...
My focus these days is healthy, exercise and eating better and less, as I journey along to lose those extra pounds that have gathered... So of course I am thinking about Sven's Bakery...
Growing up in Pasadena, California, we had a bakery on Colorado Blvd., the street where the Rose Parade travels. Our home was about 6 blocks south. Sven's was a big bakery, right on the main corner. It smelled unbelievable, it was always busy and bustling. When you tasted what they baked, you would know why. The thing I loved the very best was an almond paste filled coffee cake. It was round and fresh and just melted like butter when it hit my mouth.
One day, years after I was married, had 3 kids, and we had moved to Texas, I was back in California, visiting my parents. They had since moved down close to the beach in San Juan Capistrano, but we spent a day in Pasadena. We stopped at Sven's, it was still there! We bought 2 of those coffee cakes, placed on white paper doilies into their nice boxes. Each cake served at least 8 to 10 people.
In the hour and 1/2 it took us to drive back to San Juan, I sat in the back seat and one pinch at a time, ate one whole coffee cake, down to the last crumbs. I had some explaining to do when we got home.
This detour today is very real... so real that I can almost taste it! Now Sven's has changed ownership, it's called 'Federico's', even the name sounds wrong, more Italian than Scandinavian... so probably that coffee cake doesn't even taste good anymore!
These days as I am intentionally eating healthier and less, it is not vegetables that I dream about... it's Sven's.
Speaking of exercise...
Did you see the funny quote in Good Housekeeping?...
"Why are my arms so weak? It's like I did that push-up last year for nothing!"...
Okay... end of detour ... think of all the calories I've saved today by writing about it instead of eating it! That thought makes me almost as happy as taking a big bite of it would... almost.
Even at the age of 4 or 5 years, our grandkids have amazed us with what they say and the way they think.
I'm thinking of a certain day a few years ago, and one of our granddaughters was riding in the back seat all buckled up, as she and I were heading down the road.
Out of the blue this 4 or 5 year old said...
"God's faithfulness endures forever!"
I was thrilled and quickly chimed in to agree and elaborate, thinking this was a perfect spiritual teaching moment.
Before I could get more than a sentence out, she added...
"And Mimi... I know how to shake my booty!"
There you have it! Those 2 random comments, coming out of the mouth of a small child with very little pause between the statements. The tug of war that begins early and continues until the day we will see Jesus.
And yes, I had to laugh at the time, and it still makes me smile when I think of it...
Isn't this a classic example? On the one hand, she has Godly parents who are investing their lives into these girls, and instructing them daily about Jesus.
And on the other hand, tv, movies, other kids at school, magazines, etc.... are trying to win them over to the system of this world at an accelerated speed.
It's a good thing that we know who is the winner in today's world, and what the final outcome will be. In the meantime, there can't be too many prayers lifted on behalf of all of those that we love.
A funny thing happened when I closed my blog...
I kept writing it anyway!
I didn't plan on that.
I thought there was enough going on in my life that it would be good to let the blog go for awhile. But whenever I got a new thought or idea, I punched it out quickly on my computer and just let it sit, unread, and unpublished.
So I kept writing, but there was something missing...
Fellowship with all of you!
So here I am again. I may do less blogs than I used to, but I am definitely back! Probably you are rolling your eyes and saying, 'that's just what happened to me, she must be a slow learner'... :)
So here's to all of you, the friendship, fellowship and fun that you bring! And here's to this former blogger re-joining the ranks!
