A Maturing Prayer

This post started out heading in a completely different direction than it is now headed. God is amazing! These past two months have been insanely busy and that has created a lot of problems emotionally, physically and honestly spiritually. This post originally started out basically whining about things that have transpired and how it has impacted my spiritual life in particular and as I was getting to the point of what I thought God had for me tonight in His Word, He showed me something completely different...so here's that thought instead.
     Circumstances lately have had a very negative effect on my walk with God. My prayer life has been horrible and that includes my prayer for meeting Tebow. It has gotten so bad, that at times, while I would be greatly disappointed in myself if it happened, I would not be surprised if God did not answer this request. I forget to pray, so much so that over the past month I have been asking God if it is even worth it to keep on praying, it is nearly April after all. Yet, every time I think I'm done, it's pointless, I haven't been faithful so why should He be, the Holy Spirit convicts me; He won't let me let it go. And honestly, that frustrates me.
     There are several areas of my life that are being neglected and they are needful things and the pressure to take care of them weighs on me heavily. often to the point of me shutting down in an effort to cope...which of course doesn't help. Every time God convicts me about not praying, I feel overwhelmed because, in that moment of conviction, I do pray and I do ask God to be more faithful than me. But in that moment of conviction I also feel overwhelming frustration because I know those moments of prayer are nothing compared to what I used to spend praying and I feel guilty. I read a verse in II Thessalonians tonight in which Paul was praying for the people in the church to have power to do all the things their faith had prompted them to do. That verse struck me because here lately, given the circumstances, I question whether or not this was something I should have been praying about at all. In reading that verse, I recalled very clearly the moment God said ask Me and see what I will do. I know this prayer journey is something my faith in God prompted me to do...so that question is settled, but there was still this frustration over my actual prayers for it. As I was writing the original post, God brought something to mind. This prayer is over two years old now, maybe it doesn't need the same kind of prayer that it did in the beginning. Maybe I don't need to spend hours praying to know God's mind and direction for this prayer because I already know it, He's already shown me that. I don't need to spend hours trying to find His will for this, He's shown me and what I don't know, I 've already asked for. This prayer has matured and grown and maybe is to the point now that all I need to be asking is for God to bring the answer as He sees fit; that prayer wouldn't take as long as the early months of this prayer did.
     I know I need to pray more often than just the times God convicts me, but at least I have a greater peace in realizing that this prayer doesn't have to be as long as it once was, many of the things I was looking for answers to have been answered. It's okay that my prayer time over this is shorter if that's how God leads. I don't need to feel frustrated or defeated and I certainly don't need to give up. Time is of no consequence to God, He can accomplish quite a lot in very little time...my job is to just pray as God directs, whether it be a few minutes or many.

Out Of The Mouths Of Babes...Or Teen-agers

Let me just take a few sentences here to say how much I absolutely love my high schoolers, all of them, not just the seven many of us have been praying for over the past three years. These are an amazing group of kids who really do love God and really do work on building a growing and thriving relationship with Him. My homeroom class has 11 students in it. Four days a week I have the privilege of having devotions with them. On Fridays, they each share something they learned from God that week and they all have something to share. A lot of the times it is something they have learned in chapel that week or in their respective churches, but many times I hear, "while I was reading in my Bible..." or "during my devotions, God showed me..." How sweet to hear these kids are choosing to spend time with God, on their own, outside of school. I love to hear what they have to say, and occasionally, God uses one of them to challenge or help me as was the case recently.
     One of the boys had been reading about prayer. He has a dog that he loves very much. Several months ago it was diagnosed with cancer and not given long to live. He said he and his family have been praying for the animal ever since. Recently, they took her in to the vet who told the family he was shocked the animal was still alive. Animals with her type of cancer do not live long and he couldn't believe she had lived three months longer than he had originally given the family. Of course the boy attributed that to their family prayers. He told his classmates that they needed to believe God's promises for answered prayers because God had answered his family's request. Okay, so you may be thinking what I was thinking then, this is an animal, when it dies, it goes into the ground and that's it, but the boy was right about God's promises.
     There is something I have been praying about for a few weeks, something, that in the grand scheme of eternity, really doesn't matter, it's just a desire of my heart. I've been reading in James, always a dangerous thing to do, about prayer requests and why they often go unanswered. I've read these verses I don't know how many times in my life, but God shed some new light on a few of them in particular. One, often we don't have things because we don't ask. Often, I want to ask God for something and then think, nah, it's selfish, God won't answer that, but my student asked God for the life of his pet and God answered. The verse following says that often when we do actually ask, we don't get what we ask for because we only want it for our own selfish pleasure. God has really been working on me about why I pray for what I do and to make sure the things I am asking for and the things I am doing will glorify Him somehow or at least open up an opportunity for Him to be glorified. God sparing the life of that dog may seen frivolous to me, but it was an answered  request that has definitely brought glory to God. This boy has testified to his classmates of God's ability to answer prayer a few different times. Sparing that dog's life has helped this young man to experience God's graciousness in his life and he has shared a few times how he knows God has done this...this is why God answered his prayer, it wasn't just for his own selfish pleasure, but a chance to bring glory to God.
     This teen's testimony has really reinforced what God has been trying to teach me in James. Ask, the answer is definitely no if I don't. It's okay to ask for our desires even if, in the grand scheme of eternity, it makes no difference. If it truly is important to us, it is important to God and He can use those situations to bring glory to Himself...just ask my 15 year old student who is at home holding his dog tonight.

A Reason To Trust

Tonight as I was praying about Tebow's visit, I told God that I couldn't even begin to imagine all the things that He needed to do in order to make this happen. Think about that for a minute, all the things that have to go just right just for Tebow to even found out we've been praying for this, much less all the scheduling that will have to be done for the visit...that's a lot folks. I couldn't help reminding God that these kids were now seniors...in January...of the year of their graduation...we're running out of time here, God!!! And then He pointed out through Creation's story just what a master planner He is and how quickly He can get things done. I teach chemistry and right now we are struggling through how molecules bond, a rather complex event, and God created that in just one day of creation, it's taken my kids two days just to kinda', sorta' get what's going on!!! The laws of physics, the orbits of the planets, the ocean animals, land animals, man...each created in just one day and everything together in just six days. That's a lot of work in a short time. Not only did He do a boat load of work in a short time, His timing and planning of the days of creation was impeccable. Everything was created in a timely and orderly fashion...light first, land before animals, animals before man, He scheduled everything and nothing slipped through the cracks, it all happened just as it needed to.
     Really, when you consider God created the entire complexity of the universe in six days...and He took six days only for our benefit, it could have taken Him only a second really...5 months and scheduling who sees what and when for a visit from Tebow really is nothing. Creation just gives me another reason to trust that God is capable of doing anything, no mater how big, how vast or how much (or little) time He has.

Yeah Us!

Nothing really profound in this blog, just God shedding a new light on something I already knew and realized. Over Christmas break God really began to work on me about making my salvation and my relationship with Him personal...that this is something between me and Him. It is so easy to generalize salvation...Jesus died for us, our sins put Him on the cross, God wants us to have a relationship with Him. All these things are true, but if I only think in those general terms it takes a lot of responsibility of me. I am not solely responsible for Jesus' death, I solely am not in need of salvation, I personally do not have to build a relationship with Him. The truth is I myself and only me is responsible for all those things. God saved me, Jesus died for me, God wants a relationship with me regardless of anyone else. So I find myself in this new year once again taking steps to build up my relationship with God. As I was praying tonight, I thanked God for not giving up on me, especially when we've travelled down this road of spiritual improvement before and failed. As I was doing this, I began to think how I would react if I were God. I would look at me with a raised eyebrow, thinking 'is this for real this time' and 'we'll see how long this time lasts.' But that's not what God is thinking at all. He's thinking "yes, let's do this!"  and "yeah us, let's go" or in the words of my volleyball girls, "we've got this!" God doesn't look back at all the times I've tried and failed and use them as a standard for success, He looks at this new determination as if it were the first time and sees success. This thought gave me a whole new appreciation for David saying God is for us...He is.
     As my prayer continued on into Tebow territory, God reminded me He felt this same way about my prayer commitment over Tebow. He still sees success in this commitment; He's not using past failures as the standard for success this time.
     There's just something about knowing God is for us...that He's in this with me 100% with no memory of past failures...that He is probably in heaven cheering, "Yeah, Us!!"

Moving Forward

       First, let me report that my prayer journey has resumed with a credible amount of faithfulness and that God is breathing life back into this journey.. PRAISE HIM!!! But in so doing, I think I've drawn Satan's attention, he seems to be watching to see just how serious I am and is becoming a little suspicious. He's been throwing some rather odd obstacles into my prayers to see what would happen and it really wasn't until tonight as I was praying that I recognized what he was doing.
     Once I recommitted this prayer to God and began to honestly lift it up again, I wasn't sure just exactly what I could pray for, what I was still allowed to ask for. The Bible is full of stories where people were given a second chance, but there was always some consequence...Samson died, Moses was denied entrance to the Promised Land, Peter temporarily lost his relationship with Jesus, David had to run for his life and eventually lost a son. Yes, God had given them all second chances, but there was a loss as well. Satan got me to focus on that...what would be the consequences, what could I ask for, what had I lost, did I even still have a right to ask God for this? I became so wrapped up in dancing around those issues, I'd all but stopped fully asking God to still honor this request. Tonight, as I was dancing around the issue of what I could ask Him for, God finally broke through. He pointed out I was the one looking back at what had happened, He wasn't. Yes, Samson blew it, yes Samson paid a price with his life, but Samson still fulfilled God's purpose...to defeat the Philistines. Yes, Peter denied Christ and suffered broken fellowship, but God used Peter to lay the foundation of the church as He said He would. There may be things God can no longer do, but there are still things He can do, there are still plenty of things He wants to do... and those are the things I need to focus on in my prayers.
     We're told to come boldly before the throne and make our requests known. It's time to put the mistake in the past, where it happened and stop being so timid and unsure in my prayers and letting Satan use that as a deterrent. It is time to move forward and see what it is God will still accomplish in this prayer.

God Of A Second Chance

"Howbeit the hair of his head began to grow again after he was shaven" Judges 16:22

Nearly two years have passed since the beginning of this prayer journey. As time has dragged on, many of the things I feared would happen, have. Many of the things I so arrogantly said would not happen in this journey did. Tonight, I believe my biggest fear of this journey has happened. Early on in one of these blogs I shared how tragic it would be for us to come within a day, an hour, even a minute of God answering this prayer and quitting before He did and I fear that is exactly what has happened.
     I'd heard on the radio last week that Tebow had been last spotted on a beach in Hawaii. Today, someone mentioned to me they'd heard he was here. I went online to find out if there was any truth to the news and found out he had been here in mid-October. I can not find any news saying that he is still here in our islands. My first reaction was to accuse and question God. "Why would you bring him all the way to Hawaii and not to our school?" "Why would you only answer part of the request, get him this close and not allow us to meet him?" Tonight, when I got home, I knew I needed to spend some time with God trying to find answers. It didn't take God long to begin showing me some realities. I still do pray, if that is what you want to call it, for this request. My prayers early on were some rather lengthy conversations with God, begging Him to show me what to pray, to confirm it with Scripture...and He did, often. Those prayers were spent honestly seeking out God, learning so much about prayer and the role of the Holy Spirit. They were prayers lifting Tebow up before God as I'd promised I would. My 'prayers' now consist of a ten minute car ride to work, basically, "God bless Tebow, God burden his heart with a desire to come to Hawaii, God answer my prayer." It's no wonder God showed little interest in answering my prayer, look how important it had become to me. How often had I told my kids God was only as interested in this prayer as we were. Something else He showed me was the kids themselves. I dare say very few, if any, of them still pray for this and I fully understand why...it's been a long time with little tangible results. There were many, many spiritual rewards early on, but time went on and it got harder, being a prayer warrior is not an easy thing. I don't think they're falling away is entirely their fault, however. I was supposed to be their spiritual accountability. I signed an agreement saying I would be and I stopped. I let school schedules and summer put a stop to our prayer times. This became unimportant to them because it became less urgent to me. That hits me the hardest...what have they missed because I dropped the ball?
     The disappointment is strong that Tebow was here and we missed it. I prayed up until the last minutes and quit and missed God answering this prayer for my kids in their senior year. In the midst of the sorrow and tears, God did bring Samson to mind. Samson blew it big time. God's rules became unimportant to him and he suffered greatly because of it. But that verse above says his hair began to grow again...Samson began to believe again and God gave him a second chance.
     That is where my hope is tonight, in a God of a second chance. I realize there are things God would have loved to do in answering this prayer and may now not be able to just as I am sure there is much God would have loved to do for and through Samson had He been given the chance. Samson did eventually give Him that chance and God still did something pretty incredible. The Bible says Samson killed more Philistines in his death than in his life. God can still do something pretty incredible here as well.
     This has been a very sobering wake up call, but I am awake now. Proverbs says a righteous man falleth seven times and riseth up yet again. It's time to get up, dust off and start moving forward with this again and not waste a second opportunity for God to answer this. 

Transformed

"For I know the thoughts I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and not evil..."

Jeremiah 29:11

Every year, I choose a Bible verse and theme for my volleyball team. We use the verse and related theme in our team devotions and on the courts during games and practices. The theme this year is "Transformed" and the related verse is Romans 12:2, "but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind..." Now, I have to admit, that when I first discussed this verse with some of my players last year, it sounded fun because we would be able to use Transformers in the design of our team t-shirts. When the school year ended, I took a closer look at this verse and what being transformed meant. I have to say, I never expected to find what I did and had I known then what I know now, I would have NEVER picked this theme...or thought it would be cool because of some dumb robot design. However, God in His wisdom knew this was exactly what I needed and put it on my heart and through all the heartache and transforming, I can see so many good things happening and as my girls take this idea of transforming their thinking, I see definite results on our team, spiritually and athletically.
     Now, you may be wondering what a volleyball theme has to do with my prayer journey blog and Tim Tebow, so let me tell you.  As I studied the verse, I came to realize that its not my actions that need to be transformed, but the way I think and view things that needs to be changed. A change in me will only come when I begin to think the way Christ does. The amazing thing about this journey is not that God has been showing me new things to think on but has taken things I have known practically my entire life and has begun to change my thinking on them. He has shown me clearer views of what He really means in passages that are overly familiar to me. One of the biggest things He has worked on transforming in me is my perception of how He views me. One of my biggest battles this summer has been Satan putting in my mind that my sin makes God not want to use me or love me and that's why my prayers over meeting Tebow have gone unanswered. Since I am determined to be transparent in these blogs, I will admit that for most of the summer, I bought Satan's lie. It has taken, and still does on some days, quite a bit of persistence on the Holy Spirit's part to break through that lie and show me He has forgiven me and still wants me. Recently I came across a quote that so clearly relates to what I had been experiencing over the summer,

     Satan knows me by my name and calls me by my sin.

God knows my sin and calls me by my name

 

 

How true that statement is. God has forgiven my sin and is faithful to forgive me each time I slip up. Those slips do not automatically disqualify me from being used by Him. Time and again God brought the stories of Moses, David, Peter, Abraham to mind, God uses messy, dirty people to do His work, even when His work seems impossible. If God can use murderers to create a family line to free His people and eventually bring Jesus into the world; if He can build His church through one who betrayed Him, He can certainly use my prayers to bring about a meeting with Tim Tebow, no doubt.  After months of on-going transforming, Satan's voice isn't quite as loud now when I pray for that meeting, and the voice of the Holy Spirit is much clearer and much easier to believe.