Thankful God HASN'T Answered Yet?!

Yes, you read the title correctly...
Last night as I was praying for this request, asking God once again to please hurry with an answer to it, God once again started bringing to mind all the things that I have learned over this past 3 months and all the things He has done. It occurred to me that had God answered this prayer before last night, there are so many things I would have missed out on.
If God had answered this back in January, I wouldn't have learned first hand that faith is a choice we make every day, not an emotion we experience.
Had He answered it in February, I wouldn' have learned the challenge of praying for something having no idea as to what it was. This blog also would not have been started.
Had He answered in March, I would not have learned the painful lesson of truly submitting to God's will when it was so opposite of mine. I would not have learned the value in and  the power of praying through the Holy Spirit. I wouldn't have learned to recognize the very real difference between the voice of the Holy Spirit and that of Satan disguising himself as the Holy Spirit. I would not have experienced what I believe to be the greatest blessing to come out of this journey yet...UNINTIMIDATED and seeing my students take this initial step in covenant praying and becoming genuine prayer warriors. I wouldn't have my promise from God in Matthew 18:19... WOW, it really is a good thing God didn't answer before March was through.
Had God answered this before today, in April, I wouldn't have been given the opportunity to leave this as a memorial in the lives of my current students or future ones here at Friendship. I wouldn't have had the opportunity this morning to share with my students that they don't have to hope for God to answer their requests, that they can come with boldness to the throne of God and ask in confidence knowing He will answer according to His will.
And this is just a FEW of the things I've learned and experienced along the way!!!!
As much I want God to answer this request NOW, I am strangely grateful that He has waited. The things He has done, the things He has taught me, the ways He has worked I wouldn't trade for a quicker answer. Some things really do get better with time.

Boldly Come

Yesterday morning as I was walking to the office, when of my sophomores stopped to tell me he had read some verses in his devotions that morning about prayer and that those verses reminded him God was going to answer our prayers about Tebow. Later, in homeroom, as we were waiting to begin devotions, I asked what verses he had read. He took us to a Psalm that basically says when we pray God actually listens. He said God emphasized that to him, that He really does listen when we pray.
We have a permanent prayer list on our white board, things we try to pray for every day. After what God had shown my student about prayer and what God had shared with me concerning Jarius' daughter, I told them we should now include meeting Tebow in our daily prayer time. Today was the day for my aforementioned student to pray. He did pray for our opportunity to meet Tebow, but it was how he prayed that struck me. He prayed that hopefully we would get to meet Tebow, just 15 minutes after stating God listens to us when we pray, he prays hopefully we get to meet him. It made we think of the verse in Hebrews that says we can come boldly to the throne of God. I think so often we mistake boldness for pride in our prayers and that often we don't pray boldly because we are unsure of our request.
What I think my student failed to understand is that our prayers are to be in accordance with God's will. If we can can turn our prayers over to the Holy Spirit and let Him guide them, let Him be our voice to the Father, we are praying in accordance with His will. We can then come boldly to God's throne with our requests knowing they are the things God desires and confident that God does hear and will act.
For my sophomores who will read this, I'm not criticizing your classmate. Praying boldly was something I had to learn at the beginning of this journey. It wasn't easy, and often the boldness turned into a demanding and prideful spirit and if I am not careful now, that still happens.  I just know that at this point, I am praying in the Father's will and  we don't have to hope we are going  to meet Tebow, we are...God has shown me in several verses and in a hundred answered prayers this is going to happen. Let this knowledge encourage you to pray boldly, to pray in confidence for the day you will meet Tim Tebow.

Only Believe

With our school year winding down, the choice to believe that God is still going to answer this request is sometimes very difficult. I often wish that God were as bound to time as we are, it would make it so much easier to believe, but He's not. Last night as I was trying to pray, fear that God would not answer kept creeping into my prayers, causing some of that frustration I mentioned in my last post.
This morning I was reading in Luke 8. One of the many stories told in this passage is the healing of Jarius' daughter. As Jesus was traveling to Jarius' house, He was delayed first by a crowd, then by a woman who needed healing. As Jesus continued on, Jarius' servants came to tell him not to bother Jesus anymore, his daughter had died. Jesus looked at Jarius and told him, "Be not afraid, only believe..." Jarius was faced with a momentous decision, what was he going to do? It certainly seemed time had indeed ran out for him, that Jesus could not longer heal her. Jesus, however, was telling him to have enough courage to trust that He could still work. It occurred to me as I read Jesus' admonition to Jarius that He was speaking those words to me. It only seems that time has run out for God to still fulfill this request. I look at our calendar and see very limited, if any opportunity, for God to still arrange this meeting. God is asking me to be courageous enough to still believe although time seems to be running out. Time for the daughter had run out, but time for Jarius had not. Jesus was telling him He would still work if Jarius wanted Him to. Fortunately for his daughter, Jarius found the courage to believe in Jesus and his daughter was restored to him.
I don't need to fear God will not fulfill this promise, He's already said He would. I need to be courageous enough to believe that with only 5 weeks of school left and all the craziness of our schedules, God can still work. Jarius was bound by time and so am I, God however is not and five weeks of craziness is still ample time for Him to fulfill His promise.

Be Still and Know...

I am so thankful that David wrote in Psalms, "Be still and know that I am God." It was the verse the Holy Spirit used to break through all the frustration and confusion in my prayers tonight. Tonight was one of those nights I struggled focusing in my prayers, and Satan took complete advantage. As I am writing this, I'm still not sure much was accomplished in my prayers and I truly hope God counts my efforts to finish the prayer as faithfulness. I seem to go through a cycle in my prayer life, this one included, where I feel that I have to be perfect for God to answer by prayers. I know, from a previous Bible study, that for me to think this is pride. I cannot merit God's favor, it's not because I deserve to have this prayer fulfilled that it will be. When it is fulfilled, it will be because He loves me and desires to do things for me; it will be because as much as is in me, I fulfilled my end of the covenant in the verses He gave me. When I was still enough tonight to actually let God talk to me, He did point out that in each verse He gave me as His promise, the condition in each of them that I had to meet was simply, "ask and believe." Nowhere do any of the conditions in these verses say my life has to be sinless. Nowhere do these verses say I have to be worthy to merit His favor. They simply say I have to have enough faith to pray in His will and believe that He will answer. God does not expect me to be perfect, He expects me to be faithful...that is what He will reward...that is why He will answer this prayer.

The Real Proving Ground

I named this blog The Proving Grounds because at the time, I thought this whole journey was about me testing or proving God to be Who He says He is. It turns out this hasn't been about me proving Him at all, it's been about Him proving me, how faithful I would be, would I really submit to His will, what would it take to stop me from believing and praying.
I wish I could say that I never grew discouraged. I wish I could say that I never wanted to quit or that I easily submitted my will to Him when it was so opposite of what I wanted. I wish I could say that every part of this prayer was prayed unselfishly, but none of it would be true if I did. Truth is, I did want to quit when it became hard to believe. Sadder still, I wanted to quit when I wasn't getting my way. It took several weeks to fully crucify my flesh over Tebow going to the Jets. There have been many days when I just wanted to go to bed rather than spend the time in prayer. There were days that I was so frustrated with God about His silence I wanted to say, "that's it, I'm done, You're not listening anyway." There were days like today when I was just so physically tired of battling Satan that I didn't think I had in it me for one more prayer. I look back over the months of this prayer and wonder how it is I am still standing here believing and praying?
The only reason I can give as why today, nearly three months later, I still had a time of prayer was because I determined way back at the beginning that the Holy Spirit would be a part of this. That He was my only access to the the will of the Father. Because I determined to be filled with the Holy Spirit and let His power flow through me. Because I chose, like Joshua in the Old Testament, to serve God. That all sounds so easy and at times it was and others not so much. So how is it I was able to follow through on those determinations? The work of the Holy Spirit in each of those determinations is why I am still here praying and choosing still to take God at His Word. When He says NOTHING is impossible; when He says where two are agreed they can ask anything and it will be done; when He says to ask in faith nothing wavering it will be done He means it. I didn't have to prove Him, He has been everything His Word said He would be.
As I yet have no response from Tebow, I know this time of proving is not over. I know that in the days and possibly weeks ahead I will have to prove anew my determination to see this through to its fulfillment; my hope today is that I have proved to God that I was and am worthy of His request of me that I ask Him to allow my kids to meet Tim Tebow.

In the Garden

"And He walks with me and He TALKS with me..."
Since the night that God showed me all the ways He has been working on this request, I have endeavored each time I pray to include a time of thanking and praising Him for the ways He is still working on this request. Last night, as I was looking back over this journey, I began to think about all the prayer that has gone into this request. To God's credit and the work of the Holy Spirit in me, I realized that there have only been two days in which I did not spend time in prayer for this request. That, in and of itself, is pretty amazing, but what amazed me even more was that each and every time I have spent in prayer, the Holy Spirit was in the prayer and not once that I can recall has my prayer become a vain repetition of words. That was one of my biggest fears at the beginning. I did not want this prayer to become something I do out of habit, or to check off an item on a spiritual to-do list. It was imperative that each time spent in prayer be a fresh and new time spent with God. I have prayed for some of the same things over and over, so how did these requests not become hurried, unfocused requests tossed in God's direction? That would be the Holy Spirit at work in me. If I have learned nothing else in this journey, I have learned how to turn my prayers over to the Spirit and let Him direct. Every prayer has been a real and genuine conversation with the Father through the Holy Spirit's direction. It has astounded me how much God wants to talk with me. When I first began this prayer, pretty much it consisted of "God, here's my request, here's the promises you made, please be faithful to your Word. Amen." Those early prayers lasted maybe 15 minutes at most. I try very carefully not to look at a clock now before or after my prayer time, but I would estimate that my prayers now take close to an hour and sometimes more...why? Because God has an awful lot to share with me concerning this request. I mention the time, not to brag on myself, but to point out that God does want to talk to me, if I'll just let Him.
There are SO many more things I pray for in this request now, exciting things that I can't wait for God to answer. Why? Because I take the time to not only talk to God, but to let Him talk back to me.
"...and the joy we share as we tarry there, none other, has ever known." truer words have never been spoken.

A Memorial

One of the many reasons I ask God to fulfill this request is so that my kids will have a spiritual landmark in their lives; that one day when they are faced with an impossible situation requiring prayer, they will be able to look back at their sophomore year and have tangible evidence that God will do the impossible.
This morning I was reading in Mark 14 of Mary pouring out the precious ointment on Jesus. In verse 9, Jesus told His disciples that her act of love would be a memorial of her wherever the Gospel is preached. I have read that verse a thousand times, but today, it really hit home with me. What am I doing for Christ that will be remembered as a memorial of Him?  I asked God what I could do that would be a memorial for future Friendship students and immediately I thought of this request. When God fulfills this request, it will be an amazing testament to the power of prayer. It will be proof positive in the life of my sophomores of what God can do if we only trust Him enough to do it. I then thought of the impact this could have on future Friendship students. I want this story to be repeated to future students, not so  that I can be credited, not so that a story of how Tim Tebow once visited our school can be told, but so that God's power in prayer can be credited. I may not always teach here at Friendship, but God, hopefully, will always be an integral part of this school. I want this story repeated so those students whom I may never know, will know the great things that can and do get accomplished through prayer. This is the memorial I want to leave for my students and the many to come after.