Today has been a day of blessings. It has been tremendous and amazing and awesome to see the answers to so many prayers coming together at one time. I won't steal the chance of others to let everyone know what is happening. And, the details are not actually significant to the post I am writing.
We, Katrina and I, have prayed together for and over our family. We have repeatedly and completely given some of these things over to God. These are things that are not small by any measure. We were not blessed by having gotten rid of the blight on one of our gardenias. We are talking about career paths, relationships, family, life-altering things.
We have been praying for months for some of these things, for our family. We have been persistent with God, and hopefully, persistent in the right ways and for the right things. We have not been praying to win the lottery, but for the basic directions and securities in life that we are supposed to rely on the Lord to provide.
I will not put words in Katrina's mouth, and her faith is of a much more certain and enveloping variety than mine. But, I was struggling with how to communicate with God. I mean, clearly there was a need to be different in how I approached the Lord, as it was not working to my timeline. I was not doubting what God could do, but I was beginning to wonder what God would do. That is a huge difference, could and would. And, not a comfortable place for a man that measures the world by data, metrics and certain cause and effect.
Perhaps it is the most human of reactions, to wonder why your timeline is so different from God's, and why you do not see the situation in the same way as God. I find that faith is the only thing that fills that void of wonder and confusion. However or whyever the Lord does what He does, we are here to serve Him, not the other way around. I think I was forgetting that last piece.
We are told to take everything to the Lord in prayer, and to submit completely to the will of God concerning yourself. Yep, that is what we are told, and what I have tried to do. But, it would be a complete lie to say I have been able to just do that. It is not so simple, for me, to just let it go to God. I am compelled to act on things that require solution, it makes me good in my career, good in my hobbies, and good at most things I try in life. It is part of me.
Some of these blessings we have received, I started praying for daily when Katrina and I were on our honeymoon. For almost a year, I have been asking God for these things consistently, and a huge helping of comfort and peace in leaving that in the hands of the Lord. That second part has been hard on me. I am thankful God gave me enough comfort and enough peace, to stay on track and to live within His timeline.
I am beyond grateful for these things we have received, the entire family. We don't deserve them, and certainly have not earned them in God's eyes. Yet He still was faithful to our needs, on His schedule and in His ways. It is instructive, though I should not have needed the instruction. God has been good to me and our family, always. Still, I was not able to easily trust in Him.
It may be that is the least human reaciton, to unhesitantly and unequivocably trust in God. Had it been a simple attribute, either Eve or Adam would not have eaten from that tree. I did not get a bigger helping of trusting God. It takes work and focus and daily reinforcement. We have been, and remain, wonderfully blessed in our day to day lives. We are HAPPY! We are loving. We see the children as often as we can. We have a church home.
I will continue to pray, and at least for tonight, it will be prayers of thanks and praise. We will move on to new requests and pleadings to the Lord. We are too needy to go more than a day or two without asking for something we really, really want. (Sometime we even develop a need for what we are requesting.) But, tonight I needed to make it known that God has been wonderful to us today.
I think that He is wonderful to us every day, and we pray for eyes to see that. But, though we often do not see it clearly, I know it is there. Today it is very clear. And, I am very thankful and very thoughtful. I hope we continue to pray hard, we continue to rely on the Lord, and that our lives are a blessing to all.
I love you all.
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