Answered Prayers.Ugh.

I am always surprised when I receive direct answers to prayer. I know-I shouldn't be, but time after time the Lord answers my prayers and I sit back and think "Wow, that really just happened." I would like to believe it is more of an awe or amazement at His goodness and faithfulness and His love for me rather than a shock that He really is all-powerful and really does care about my life. Either way, I am continually amazed by His answers. These past few months have brought specific answers to prayers which I have been praying for years...prayers I had all but given up on believing God's answer may just be a resounding "no." And as hard as that would have been, it would have been okay. Because I know His ways are higher than mine. And after all, just a few months ago I blogged on my gratitude for unanswered prayers. However, this week I am not struggling with the "no" answers or even the seemingly "unanswered prayers." Quite the opposite actually, this week I am struggling because of answered prayers.


You see, my greatest desire is to be made more like Christ, to be a reflection of His love, grace, and goodness to the world. I have been told I am quite self-aware...which most likely is a nice way of saying I am a "what you see is what you get" kind of girl. I don't put up pre-tenses and I am honest, maybe to a fault. That honesty can carry over into the way I view myself. I am keenly aware of some (no, not all!) of the areas in which I struggle. And I spend time asking the Lord to change those areas, to make me more like Him and less like impatient, stubborn, selfish, anxious, me. I guess I just never realized quite how painful that refining process would be. Nor did I realize that one event would reveal my weaknesses in EVERY one of those areas. Yes, I am once again amazed at the Lord's direct answer to my prayers. But the jury is still out on whether this is a "good" amazed.


For years I have prayed that the Lord would teach me to become more patient. After all, this is a fruit of the Spirit, and one I would never possess in my own strength. I am incredibly impatient. I hate to wait. I am an instant gratification kind of girl. I see the newest thing and I have to have it..yesterday. When I was little, money burnt a hole in my pocket. I had to spend it...immediately. I thought becoming a teacher was God's way of teaching me patience. After all, you try dealing with fifty-one 9 yearn olds on a daily basis and see if it doesn't stretch...errr increase....your patience. I thought being single at the age of 30 was God's way of teaching me patience. Especially after I have watched several of my old campers (yes, I spent a few summers as a teen camp counselor) grow up, get married, and have their own children. Oh, I am certain the Lord is using those things to increase my patience, but apparently I am a really slow learner or (thank the Lord) He isn't finished working on me yet, because this week He placed a HUGE "hurry up and wait" situation in my life. Though not necessarily Scriptural, I am sure it was still a wise person who said, "Good things come to those who wait." Dear me, I hope so. Check back in a few months and I'll let you know for sure. I do know that the Lord will not waste this opportunity. If I allow Him to, He will increase my patience in this storm whether or not I get what I am hoping for at the end of it. By the way, I texted a friend this weekend and asked her to pray that I would EXERCISE patience...not LEARN patience. I would be ever so grateful if the rest of you praying friends would do the same. I don't think I can handle many more "opportunities" to learn it right about now.


One of my greatest prayers for 2012 was that I would truly allow the Lord to be Lord of ALL in my life: that I would wholly surrender to His Lordship. If you know me you know I prefer...control. Allowing the LORD to control every area, to be completely obedient to whatever He asks of me, that is my prayer. I didn't realize just how quickly that would be tested. Here I sit being given the opportunity to truly surrender, to be completely obedient to a situation that I would have never chosen for myself, and honestly a situation I do not
understand, and may not even be in agreement with. Yet, nowhere in Scripture do I see where
understanding or agreement are pre-requisites for obedience. I am certain Abraham did not understand or agree with the sacrifice of his son, and yet he was willing to obey. And so I decided to obey. And I wish that was the end of it...that I had simply said "Your way, Lord, I surrender. I will be obedient." But there was a song we used to sing about obedience being, "doing exactly what the Lord commands and doing it happily." Oh, I am doing the exactly, but honestly, I am struggling with the happily. I will wrestle with God for a bit (if Jacob did, can't I?), pray for perspective, contentment, and true joy, and hopefully, prayerfully, completely surrender. Of course, that prayer for complete surrender got me here in the first place...


Deuteronomy 6:5 instructs us to love the Lord our God With ALL of our heart, soul, and
strength. My church urged us to pray this verse in February...you know Valentine's Day and all of that lovey dovey garbage. Anyway, I did. I prayed that the Lord would help me to love Him,
which I do, with my ALL, which I don't-at least not always. Oh, how I want to, but it is obvious to me today, yesterday, the day before, more than ever that there are people and things which have taken His rightful place of being my First Love. A.W. Tozer puts it this way, "Sin has introduced complications and has made those very gifts of God a potential source of ruin to the soul." When I prayed that the Lord would teach me to love Him with my all He had to root out whatever gifts He had given me that I loved and cherished more than Him. Of course He did! And logically if I loved it and cherished it that much, it hurt when it was taken away. Why didn't I think of that at the beginning of February? Or avoid it all together by never letting anyone or anything else take the rightful place of the Lord? Enter frustration.


Perhaps my fear and anxiety of the "what if" goes hand in hand with my control issues. But I always try to determine the possible outcome of every situation so that I will have a plan of attack should that possibility become a reality. Come on, that doesn't sound all THAT controlling does it? I pray that the Lord will teach me to trust Him completely. One of my very favorite verses, which ironically I often ignore, is JeremIah 29:11. "For I know the plans I have for you says the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you; plans for a hope and a future." If I truly believe this is a promise of my God and not just beautifully written words I should stop living in the fear and anxiety of what if the end of this trial turns out nothing like I had pictured? What if everything changes? What if, what if, what if...worry, worry, worry...Eugenia Ginsburg, a Russian woman imprisoned for 13 years for being a teacher wrote in her book Journey into the Whirlwind that the most anxious she felt was before she was ever arrested. The weeks leading up to her imprisonment were worse, "Perhaps because waiting for an inevitable disaster is worse than the disaster itself." Waiting for my "what if" which isn't even inevitable in my case leads to absolute torture of my heart, soul, and mind. Corrie ten Boom puts it like this, "Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength." And as I lay in my bed crying and fretting over a future I don't control anyway, I realize how weak I am. How's this for a what if...what if I would truly learn to trust my Savior, the One who really does have a hope and a future for me...even if it doesn't look anything like the future I am so hopeful for.


Lesson learned here friends: don't pray for what you don't want answered. And while I have your attention: those of you who know me well enough to know my weaknesses and pray that the Lord would work in those areas of my life....could you maybe take a few days, weeks, months even, off...seriously;) All joking aside, I am so thankful He promises to never give me more than I can handle, and thankful that He is not through working on me, molding me, and making me more like Him. I would have given up on me years ago!!