God Answers Little Prayers

I've been struggling lately.  Really struggling.  When you're struggling it usually means you're having a hard time trusting that God has your back, that He's listening...  One thing or the others seems to go wrong and I fall apart like things will never get better.  Today though I had a bright moment that I want to share.

The boys are taking tennis lessons every Tuesday and Thursday morning.  Today they were grouped together which usually makes J. insanely competitive towards M.  Neither of my kids are tennis genius's but M. is definitely NOT a sports athlete type.  He prefers to dance.  But...he likes tennis and has a relaxed attitude about trying new things.  J. on the other hand is super competitive and hard on himself.  He gets angry when he doesn't get something right the first time.  If J. misses the ball he furls up his face and stomps his feet.   If M. misses the ball he runs to the back of the line, turns around and smiles at me, winks, and gives me a thumbs up!  He couldn't care less!  So very different.

Today each boy was placed on a different "team" and the goal of each team was to get 20 balls over the net first.  Every time it was J.'s turn he pretty much got the ball over.  M. never did, not once.  It was the last point.  The teams were tied 19 to 19 and the last two kids up from each team were none other than J. and M.  The teacher said, "Okay if J. gets it and M. doesn't, J.'s team wins.  If M. gets it over and J. doesn't M.'s team wins.  If they both get it over the net, both teams win!"  "Oh my goodness!" I thought to myself.  I wanted them both to get it so badly.  I wanted them both to win.  But seriously the odds of that were slim because as I previously mentioned, M. had never hit the ball over the net even once.  So I prayed, "God please let them both get it."  And you know what?  They both did!  A tie!  Thank you Lord.  I'm having a tough time right now trusting God work certain things out in my life, but He is there.  He never leaves my side.  I needed a little reminder of that today and He gave it to me.

I'm like Peter

I am a self-professed doubter.  I’ve discussed this previously.  Time and time again God shows up and answers me in so many ways, but when my back is up against the wall and even sometimes when it isn’t the doubts creep inside my head. 

Case in point (and yes I’ve also written about this before) every single time I get home late at night and start the arduous search for a parking spot.  On these dreaded occasions I begin my conversation with God,  “Oh Lord please show me favor in finding a spot.  We been hard at work for the kingdom and could really use a spot close to our building, etc…”  Now some of you might think it silly that I make such a deal out of praying for a parking spot, but if that’s the case, clearly you must not live in NYC and have 3 crying/whining/hungry children in your backseat.  During these moments the fear of searching for over an hour (yes this has occurred but usually to R. not me) literally paralyzes me.  I start out praying with such faith, but inevitably after a few laps around the block I begin to doubt that God will come through.  This is followed by a good dose of guilt, because really and truly God answering a prayer about a parking spot shouldn’t be the end all and be all.  At some point I tend to break down as I imagine my children starving and bawling for hours on end with no spot in sight, and just as I begin my cry fest, a spot appears for me!

Why oh why do I doubt God in the first place?  The bible is chalk full of verses telling me to have faith and not doubt.  In fact many verses suggest that if I doubt at all I won’t be able to do much.  Case in point, I could move a mountain, but not if I have doubt. 

Yet I can think of at least one example of someone in the bible who lacked faith and doubted God would help him in his time of need.  That guy was Peter and when Jesus walked on water he called Peter out on to the water with him.  And just like me, at first Peter stepped out in faith…but then he doubted Jesus and boom down he went into the water!  What gets to my heart though is what happened next.  Technically Jesus should have left Peter to flounder in the water.  After all he had failed the test of his trust.  But Jesus doesn’t do that.  Here’s the verse: “Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him…” Matthew 14:31.  Jesus didn’t even make Peter wait.  He grabbed him right up and then asked him why he had doubted. 

I feel like God graciously does the same for me.  I don’t want to be a doubter, but sometimes I am.  Instead of punishing me for that, he doesn’t. In place of a slap on the wrist, He answers me.  Time and time again this happens and I have to believe with my heart that in the end of it all, my doubts will no longer have any place in me.

This is my song today and every day really:  Enjoy!

Gideon and I

So as many of you know I am making my way through the bible.  I’m currently in the book of Judges.  Judges introduces us to a man who is so much like me that we must definitely be related.  If not we are most certainly cut from the same fabric.  His name is Gideon.  I am a modern day version of him and here is why:

When Gideon appears in the bible the Israelites have yet again done evil things in the eyes of God and were being punished for it by being given over in battle to the Midianites.  The Midianites ransacked their crops and so terrorized them that they found hiding places in caves to protect themselves.   Finally, desperate for help the Israelites turn back to God and call out to Him for help.

So God sends an angel to this man Gideon and tells him, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”  (Judges 6:12 NIV)  Gideon objects, pointing out that they have been attacked repeatedly by the Midianites and abandoned by God.   But through this angel, God reassures him again, “Go in the strength you have an save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?” (Judges 6:14 NIV).  God himself told Gideon not to worry!  He told him He had his back.   I mean not many people can say that God has spoken directly to them.  Most people would claim that if God spoke to THEM directly about a situation, they would surely believe that He was both real and faithful to carry out what He said.  But not this guy Gideon.  He continues to protest, “…how can I save Israel?  My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.” (Judges 6:15 NIV)  What a doubter!  Did God not just tell Him not to worry?  God told Him that He would do it, but Gideon is looking at himself and his own ability.  He can’t imagine it even possible. 

Good thing I’m not God, because if I was at that point I would throw my hands up in the air and maybe try to fulfill my plan through someone else.  But ever patient and always understanding of our weaknesses, God persists with Gideon, “I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites together.” (Judges 6:16 NIV)  Gideon still doubts that he is hearing from God and begs God to wait for him to return with a burnt offering.  When he does, he lays out his offering of meat and unleavened bread and the angel touches it with his staff and fire flares out of a rock and consumes the offering.  Proof enough right?  He had to believe that God was in this now.  For some time it seems that he does.  He listens to what God asks him to do and tears down altar of one of the false gods they had been worshiping.  He builds an altar to God and in so doing angers the Midianites.   With his life clearly threatened you would hope that Gideon would remember the promise made to him from God.  You would think he had no cause to worry and no reason to believe that God wasn’t with him.

But Gideon the doubter still isn’t sure.  He’s afraid.  He forgets those promises and asks God for reassurance.  “If you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised- look, I will place a wool fleece on the threshing floor.  If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you said.” (Judges 6:36-37NIV)  And God did that for Gideon exactly as he had asked.  Unbelievably still unsure of himself he asks God for one more sign, “Don’t be angry with me.  Let me make just one more request.  Allow me one more test with the fleece.  This time make the fleece dry and the ground covered with dew.” (Judges 6:39NIV)  At that point if I were God I would have been angry.  I would have thought to myself “Really?  How many times have I shown you and you still don’t believe!”  Thankfully God is more merciful that I am, because He again does exactly what Gideon asks.  Finally Gideon believes!

So how am I like Gideon?  Well, quite plainly, I request the wet or dry fleece all the time.  If I am very honest with myself, with many prayers that I make to the Lord there is a little part of me that is looking to see if He is still real.  Even though He has reassured me over and over again, and has answered my prayers quite plainly in ways I cannot pass off as anything other than an act of His hand; I still go back to Him again and again, wondering if this time I’ll realize I was wrong about Him.  I know I’m not supposed to do this.  The bible says, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” (Luke 4:12NIV).  I always ask Him to forgive me for doubting Him.  I am thankful that He doesn’t leave me hanging because really He should. 

Why was He so patient with Gideon and likewise with me?  God is longsuffering.  He loves us so much He is willing to wait for us.  He is willing to prove Himself again and again.  If Gideon’s heart was anything like mine, he longed for God.  He longed to know Him.  He wasn’t testing Him to try and proved him WRONG.  He was testing him because He so desperately longed for God to be RIGHT.  Every time God answers a prayer in my heart my faith is strengthened.  He is stacking up mountains of His own personal evidence in my heart.  I’m hoping this means in the long run I will test Him less.  When I reach the end of this journey, my prayer is that I will know Him so well that there is nothing left for me to do here but go and meet Him face to face.

Yet another way I know God is real

So lately I have been having these doubts about my faith.  I believe in Him.  I believe His word is true.  But then there are these thoughts and questions that nag at me.  Like sometimes I'll have some huge question about the universe or about things that are eternal and I won't know what I believe the answer is.  Or sometimes I will wonder just for a moment, "What if everything I believe just isn't true?" It's a dark and scary place to be.  I don't like it.  At times I've pushed those thoughts out of my head and avoided them with some sort of distraction.

Lately they've been very overwhelming and I have not been able to just brush them aside.  And instead of pretending like they aren't there, I've been taking all of these questions, all of these thoughts, all of these doubts... to Him.  So what has the outcome been?  I'm still in it right now so I don't have an absolute resolution to it, but ultimately I feel He is drawing me closer to Him.  I see Him working in my life in new ways despite my questions.

 Today was just one example of this.  I've been reading the book of Exodus.  I've been totally intrigued by how weak and doubtful Moses was.  At one point Moses is crying out to God and God asks him, "Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on.  Raise up your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground." (Exodus 14:15-17 NIV)  Moses heard directly from God and he was still fearful and still had doubts that God would do what He said He would do.  He's a lot like me.  This totally encouraged me.  But what really blew me away was maybe 20 minutes later I picked up a devotional written by Ruth Bell Graham called "Letters from Ruth's Attic" and just randomly flipped to a page in it.  She was writing about how sometimes we have a tendency to pray to God all the time and not doing anything He is asking us to do.  She talked about how sometimes God wants us to stop praying when prompted and obediently step out with our actions.  I was like, "Wow that reminds me of what I just read about Moses."  And I kid you not, a few lines down she quotes the exact verse I had just read on my own.

Coincidence?  Maybe, but I don't think so.  That's what my brain might say, but my heart knows otherwise.  And the truth of it is, I've had thousands of these "coincidences" in my life.  And every other believer I know out there has experienced just as many.  They all add up together, along with the truth and evidence found in the Bible, to lead me to the only conclusion that I can... God is real.  He proves it every single day in my life.  He is very much alive and working and He will fulfill every promise in His word.  I am actually thankful even for the doubts and fears.  They make me seek His face.  They draw me in to Him.  And my greatest prayer today for anyone else who feels the same way, is that they take it to His throne, with an open mind and heart.  He says "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." (Matthew 7:7 NIV)