- You pray God will provide a way for your husband to not have to return to a miserable job. He gets permanently laid off. You then whine to God asking "what about the money?"
So my husband lost his job last week. Although he was laid up do to foot surgery, he had a good feeling there wouldn't be a job when he came back. He asked for honesty from the company instead of waiting for the bomb to drop when he was ready to return. Sure enough, the phone call came last Monday. I'll never forget walking back to my cubicle to find a text message stating, "I'm officially jobless."
A wife and mother never wants her husband to come home and say "I lost my job today". That's something you only see in the movies, right? The idea of what that text message held for me flooded my body with sadness. I started crying, found my boss-friend, and she cried with me. But deep inside, I was celebrating. For it was true evidence that God was hearing our cries for Him to take our family and do something with it - something purposeful for the Kingdom outside of this comfortable little bubble we live in.
So we wait.
Currently, Jer is providing for our family through pain (like many laborers do I guess). Everyday he walks in pain waiting for his foot to heal. The limp is becoming normal, but he never complains. That pain brings us a paycheck every Friday in the mail. In four weeks, when that check stops he will file for unemployment, along with thousands of other Americans. Then what?
We wait for a phone call.
God has seemingly made it clear that our family is to attend a 6 month DTS program through YWAM in Kona, HI. While we wait for that phone call of acceptance, I have lived fighting to surrender: surrendering my need to know. Speaking of letting things go...
Lately "Push-Back Princess" Kasiah has been driving me nuts. Everything we ask her to do and everything we say does not come without intelligent push back from her smart little mouth. I feel like I have a lawyer in my house, fighting for authority with a 3 year old. One morning it was just too much and I snapped. Coming to work in tears I vented to my husband through e-mail. His response: "I wonder if that's how God feels?"
I've been thinking about my prayer life lately. Most of it has been filled with guilt and condemnation. I am certainly not one who spends time after time in prayer every day. I am not that begger at the door that Jesus talks about, who knocks and knocks until the man finally comes to the door and the begger gets what he wants. Why have I felt so guilty about that? Because Satan is manipulative.
I may have learned something about prayer in my life. There is power in prayer. But is there power in also letting go? God sees your heart, right? Maybe if I choose with a pure heart to no longer bargain and beg to get what I want, would it maybe represent...
1. An act of surrender?
2. An act of finding peace?
3. An act of recognizing that God doesn't need you to be His "Holy Spirit"?
Often prayer is more about the heart of the one praying, than the heart of the one being prayed for.
An example: When I met Jeremy 10 years ago, I spent hours of my life on my knees for him - particularly regarding his smoking. I would fast and pray and fast and pray for him to quit. Finally, one day I said "God, I'm just going to let this one go. When you want me to start praying again, let me know. But until then, I'm done. Not because I am giving up, but because I'm surrendering this one to you and finding peace regardless of his disgusting habit."
Ten years later Jeremy quit.
God did His thing without me. He certainly didn't use me or call me to be Jeremy's Holy Spirit. Jeremy quiting had absolutely nothing to do with me. But the initial time I spent in prayer with God over that situation changed my heart forever. It brought me to find peace in the fact that Jeremy may never quit. And even if he doesn't, God still sits on His throne.
Are we called to pray? YES! Prayer makes a difference and God uses believers! But I have found that often prayer is done with impure motives. Often, we think God lays something on our hearts to share with another, when really what is being shared is more about our agenda and the need for control. The need to feel needed by God. God doesn't need me. He created me for His enjoyment, but He certainly does not need me. How arrogant to even think such a thing!
What does this have to do with our current situation and Miss Lady Lawyer?
Surrender.
* Me to surrender my need to know.
* Kasiah to surrender the bedtime bagel.
* Me to surrender my need for understanding.
* Kasiah to surrender the gum.
* Me to surrender my desire to be elsewhere.
* Kasiah to surrender the play-dough.
Does there comes a time when you need to let go and let God? Stop arguing, stop begging... just stop? Be still and know that He is God. Never cease praying...Sure! But where in scripture does it say that prayer means requests? We need to pray more gratefully, more thankfully and less selfishly.
Lord, as we wait for this phone call from Kona, thank you for making us still.
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