I have seen the movie Jonah: A Veggie Tales Movie at least once a day every day this week. Parker brings the case over for me to look at at least three times every day, and last night he managed to start the movie all by himself . (I tried to interest him in The Muppets Take Manhattan earlier this week, but he just didn't go for it.)
So I'm sitting here this morning, with Parker eating breakfast on my right, and the movie running on my left (it just ended), and in the Newsboy's track of the credits I hear--"How long is this going to take?"
Last night I started a book by Larry Crabb that Padre loaned me called The Papa Prayer. The premise of the book is that our usual approach to prayer is all wrong, and that prayer is more about enjoying the relationship than it is posting our problems and concerns. Seems rather obvious, doesn't it? Though if we really understood prayer this way, and enjoyed our relationship with God this way, prayer wouldn't be the burden or require the discipline from so many of us that it is and does. Looks like a good book. ("Limit yourself to one chapter at a time," he recommended.)
"How long is this going to take?" is something I have often wondered as I've prayed about a certain situation in the life of our family. Michael has had the same job for nearly the length of our marriage, and I have long prayed that he would find more satisfying employment. In seven years of searching, little has changed except that he gets to play the saxophone even less now than he once did. Some weeks before Christmas it hit me. If we believe that God is our provider, and He has not yet chosen to provide my husband with another job, it must be because He wants him where he is.
There are lots of reasons why this may be. I can make certain guesses based on what I know about the nature of God, but what Michael and I need to begin to pray is that God will bring us into agreement with Him that whatever it is, His will be done. It's not that I haven't prayed this way before, but the sudden realization on a December evening in 2007 imbued my previous knowledge with renewed meaning. Then the simple line from a Newsboys recording reminds me that God knows (understands, acknowledges) how I feel in the meantime.
2 comments:
Deep thoughts!!! Being happy and content with where God has us. That's such a difficult thing for me. I see something that would be "best" for my life, but God's "best" for me is usually the opposite of what I desire. :0) I wish you the best of luck on your journey. I hope you find contentment faster than I do. ;-)
It is precisely this line of thinking that kept me from praying for many years. Why tell God what I want, when what I want must not be God's will, since God is sovereign and I don't have it?
I now go ahead and tell God what I want and just trust Him about whatever happens after that. I don't even add, "if it's You will," because that suffix is more about protecting myself from disappointment that it is anything good.
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