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Are You Resigned to God’s Will When You Pray?
Recently, I spent the day helping a young friend whom I mentor re-decorate a room in her house. One of the last tasks we had for the day was to hang something on the wall. She brought out a picture she had painted herself. It was perfect for the spot, but it had a minor imperfection that would almost certainly go unnoticed by anyone else. She balked at using it because she said she spends a lot of time in that room and the imperfect picture would bother her every time she was in the room.
After hanging it as a placeholder, she firmly declared that she would replace it later.
How do you react to continual annoyances? You may not be hanging barely flawed pictures on a wall, but you are probably familiar with minor imperfections in an otherwise satisfactory experience or environment.
Does God Really Know Best?
Many times, my prayers feel a lot more like pleas. They aren’t faith-filled requests respectfully submitted to God whom I trust. They were desperate desires that I begged all-powerful God to provide. Do you know what I mean? Whether it is a prayer for healing in my friend’s marriage, a job for one of my children, or faith for me to trust God in the love life of another child, I find myself behaving like a frustrated child, begging God to wield His power to my will instead of asking Him to provide and trusting Him to act wisely.
Deep down, I wasn’t trusting in God’s character to do what’s best. I wanted God to fix things. Do you feel the same way?
Can You Wrestle with God and Win?
“I’m so proud of you, and I can’t wait to see what comes next!”
This is a common phrase that I see on social media when parents want to mark the end of a significant chapter in their children’s lives. Their child’s last high school athletic game, band concert, dance, graduation, or even move-in day at college all cause parents to swell with pride and share this milestone on social media. I totally get it. I’ve shared my kids’ milestones as well. But when I read, “I can’t wait to see what comes next,” I feel like that doesn’t tell the whole story.
How Can I Hear God?
We so often think we know exactly what we need. A new job, more understanding from our spouse, a better attitude from our kids, healing, more money, deliverance from a trial. How could any of those desires differ from what God wants us to have?
Why So Long, Lord?
The other day, someone made a comment and it re-opened wounds that I thought had healed. It was completely unintentional on her end, and I was able to stay focused on the conversation with my friend. But her innocent proclamation unleashed a flood of torment in my soul. The anguish I felt came from a reminder that a long-term prayer request of mine has never been answered. It’s just dangling in the wind, waiting for God’s wisdom, and timing to dictate its resting place. Why did God answer her prayer and not mine?
How Can I Keep My New Year’s Resolutions?
Today is the middle of January, which means many New Year’s resolutions, words, and themes have been proclaimed. Several studies show that by the end of January, almost half of the goals that were determinedly declared on January 1st have been discarded just four short weeks later.
What were you hoping to change, improve, accomplish, or become in 2023? Are you still resolute or are you feeling the temptation to throw in the towel and maybe try again another time? Or have you already sadly accepted defeat?
Why Can’t I Surrender?
I was on a conference call when it happened, but I could have easily been on the phone with one of my young adult kids, or in the kitchen when my husband came home, or having lunch with a good friend. Someone made a comment that shattered my peace and filled me with dismay and devastation. The rest of my world stopped while my thoughts started spinning. How can I solve this problem?
Where is Your Promise, God?
I’m the queen of both romanticism and nostalgia. This means that my vision of an upcoming change in life doesn’t always match reality. If we decide to move across the country for my husband’s job, I tend to romanticize the change with cautious optimism while greatly minimizing its challenges. Or, if time ushers in a new life stage, such as the beginning of middle age, I go to the other extreme and embrace nostalgia while despairing that the future will never be as enjoyable and meaningful as the past. In either case, my tendency to imagine the future creates expectations that slam into reality and produce disappointment and discontentment once one chapter closes and another one opens. Can you relate to either of these? Whether we are optimistically romantic, or hopelessly nostalgic, our presumptive nature is a tactic to help us manage our expectations and quiet our fears.
Why Am I an Emotional Wreck?
Have you ever considered trusting God with your emotions even though your circumstances are unlikely to change?
I wish I could say that stuck in crippling emotion, I sit cross-legged, with my eyes closed and my palms up, trustingly laying my feelings at the feet of Jesus. Maybe I could even add some scented candles to the scene, creating a peaceful setting that I report smells like lavender. Unfortunately, that’s a work of fiction that exists only in my mind. Instead, my narrative is filled with turmoil, restlessness, and frustration. I become pre-occupied. My mind distractedly focuses on my problem, and my brow goes into a prolonged furrowed state. Lavender is nowhere to be found.
How Do I Love Well, No Matter What?
A few weeks ago, a friend and I had a slight miscommunication that went awry. Something she said, I interpreted very differently than what was her intent and in the moment, I snapped back at her and retreated to my own pity party. My mind and my heart knew that she would never say something to try and hurt me but I let emotions take over and I chose to allow them to rule the situation.
Have You Forgotten My Request, God?
The other day I found myself wanting an explanation from God. I know this sounds ridiculous but let me explain.
Some of my prayer requests are several years old. Healing, salvation, relationship restoration, and other long-term desires take time. I understand God knows far better than I do the perfect outcome and the best time to respond. But I also know that His flawless will may fail to match the way that makes so much sense to me. In fact, His answer might be, “no”, and I may have refused to recognize or accept that.
When the pain of unanswered prayer enters my day, I find myself asking God,” Why are you silent and still when I know You could be powerful and present?” Do you wonder the same thing sometimes?
Can you let go of white-knuckled living?
I have a confession. I love everything about being a mom…except sitting in the passenger seat when our kids are learning how to drive.
They saw independence, freedom, and an exciting future. I saw the potential for an accident with possibly life-altering consequences. While our new drivers enthusiastically tackled busier roads and more complicated intersections, I hid my nerves to avoid undermining their confidence. Quite often, I found myself clenching my hands together so tightly that my knuckles turned white, and I had to take a deep breath because I realized that unconsciously, I was barely breathing.
Of course, I prayed for safety before these nerve-wracking road sessions, but we live in a fallen world and my petitions for protection sometimes felt more like frantic pleas. What if God allowed an accident despite my prayers?
Does God Know What He’s Doing?
Have you ever experienced a moment that turned your life upside down and left you feeling disoriented and distraught? Maybe that describes your current reality and you’re wondering if the future will ever feel promising again. Whether we try harder or deny its existence or numb it or push through it, emotional pain isn’t healthy to ignore. It must be addressed, or it will start to control our actions.
Is God Stingy?
What’s stopping you from living a Life of Significance?
At fourteen, I did not know how to hold my thoughts and feelings up to the Word of God. I did not know how to take every thought captive. Because of that, I was easy prey for the devil. He deceived me. I believed my feelings. I believed my thoughts. I believed my friends Dread and Fear when they told me I would be all alone in Africa, with no family or friends, living in a mud hut, with no food, starving children, mosquitos, HIV, and malaria. Dread and Fear told me God was not good, and he was holding out on me. I believed they were right. There was nothing good to be found by following Jesus to Africa.
Can I Love Like Jesus?
Today it seems we live in a world that is convinced we must take drastic measures about our views and beliefs. We are pressured into thinking that agreeing with one political party, means hating the other. We're told that we must view things in black or white. We're either left or we're right. If we're not a feminist, we must be a sexist. If we're not vaccinated, we’re murderers. The list goes on and on. One thing I think we can all agree on is that our world is completely divided and becoming more filled with hate by the moment. In the midst, I'm trying desperately to keep my eyes fixed on Jesus. I wonder what he thinks as he looks down on all of us modern-day extremists who seem to believe we have all the answers, especially since he is the only one who knows if we have been consulting him for these answers that we claim to have.
Can I Find Purpose Through My Pain?
From the time I was a young girl, I was a hopeless romantic. I could spin it to you by saying I was just plain boy-crazy, or by telling you that I possibly watched one too many Disney fairy tales along the way - but the truth of the matter is that I desperately wanted to be loved. As human beings, but women especially, we are designed to want to give and receive unconditional love. We want to be known intimately by someone who will cherish and value us for our wonderful qualities, and someone who will continue loving us right through our bad ones. As I got older, this aching desire I had to feel loved ended up making of fool of me more times than I care to recall. I made some incredibly unfortunate decisions that I'm not proud of today in an attempt to feel love. After a while, I found those attempts at "love" to be incredibly fleeting and in the long-run I was left feeling quite the opposite of what I had hoped for.
Then I had kids . . .
Why Can't I Get it Under Control?
You’re not alone
I see you. I feel you. I understand. It wasn’t that long ago that I woke up on a Sunday morning, a holiday or even a weekday, feeling like a failure. Mornings were the most painful. Sure, my head hurt with hangover, but my self-confidence was shattered by shame. Once again, I felt defeated. Despite my best efforts to control, my promises to play it safe, my determination to only drink a couple, I’d failed again. No one knew the level of loneliness I was living, the solitary confinement I had self-imposed. I was convinced no one would understand. I didn’t look or act like an alcoholic. Everyone in my social circle drank too. How could I ever ask for help? How could I ever consider living life without drinking?!