Out of Order

My microwave broke this week.  And as a result, it's like the express commuter train that I drive each day was derailed and all the cars were crashing into each other.  You don't realize how dependent you are on a time saving appliance until it breaks.  Fortunately, I have a second microwave in our basement and, after taping a "Do not use" sign to my now defunct appliance, I was making frequent trips up and down the basement steps carrying hot chocolate, tea, steamed broccoli and other items I regularly cook, usually without second thought and fewer steps.

After the appliance guy declared it unrepairable, I lugged the old one upstairs from the basement.  I had lived without a microwave for a whole week, I needed one more accessible to get through the weekend.

This whole scenario reminded me of a laughable sign I saw last January while my family and I were visiting the Young Life ministry headquarters in Colorado Springs, CO.  They were renovating the humble office space, adding some additional cubicles and painting some walls, but as we walked by one room that had recently been updated, I read a sign that stopped me in my tracks. The room was labeled "Prayer Room" and the office maintenance workers had posted a sign below that read, "OUT OF ORDER, sorry for the inconvenience".

I snapped a picture that I now keep in my office/prayer closet. First, to make me laugh, and second to let the irony remind me that our prayer room shouldn't ever be out of order -  although appliances may break down, our prayer lives don't have to.

But honestly, there are times when my prayers feel as ill equipped to reach God as my microwave is in heating up a cup of water.  Hard as I try, at times, I can't seem to carve out enough silence or solitude to focus enough to allow my heart to formulate a genuine prayer, let alone be in a position to receive a leading from the Lord.  Do I just need to heat up my prayers?  Try harder?  I just don't know.

When my microwave started going out, we noticed that the food wasn't heating up as quickly as it did before.  But why is it that the subtlety of my luke-warm prayers go mostly unnoticed? It's as if I need a maintenance guy to place a sign on me somewhere visible, "Out of Order, in Need of Maintenance."

Matters of the soul should be treated with the same urgency as an appliance repair. I need to make a call to the 24/7 maintenance guy and schedule a house call.  My prayer life should be something upon which I am just as dependent the ability to as my cup of hot water or my steamed broccoli.

But that's the challenge with soul care - it's largely done by me, for me for my own benefit. And yet, when I neglect matters of the soul, it's not only to the detriment of myself, but to the detriment of all those around me.  Like the derailed train - all the cars crash into the other.

Lord, I need you to be the maintenance repair guy and make a house call.  Teach me to pray. Not just before meals or at bedtime, but teach me to pray throughout the day without ceasing.  Help me to prioritize spiritual disciplines like study, journaling, prayer, worship, solitude above matters that are more tangible and are seemingly more urgent.  Please give me the discipline to pursue you first thing in the morning and last thing in the evening.  Help me to seek your face throughout my day. And please heat up my my defunct devotion. Let me realize my dependence on my healthy prayer life.  Let my prayers not remain Out of Order.

When God Says No

I set a new goal this year to read all of my children’s core Language Arts texts in school.  Which led me this week to asking my son if a certain book he had just finished about an eighth grader, whose brother is dying of cancer, would make me cry.  He said, “No, he doesn’t die in the book.  You’ll be fine.” 

Boys and moms are so different.  

I found myself at midnight blurry-eyed still balling, still page-turning.  In the midst of the patient’s cancer treatment in the book, the older sibling tries to bargain with God to take away his brother’s cancer.  He prays that if he does such and such, then God will heal his brother.  And that if x, y, and z happens, then God is confirming to him the cancer will be gone.  

Those prayers ‘don’t work,’ and apparently my son didn’t read the epilogue because the cancer patient who inspired the book does die from cancer.  As do many loved ones.  

Thus, my tears.  The pain is real, the prayers are real, the bargaining with God is real for so many people in a variety of situations.  Life and death prayers bring us face to face with the questions of Who is God?  Can He and will He change my circumstances?

We all want a fool-proof way to obtain our desired outcome through prayer.  Maybe there’s a formula that works?  Maybe enough faith will guarantee healing or security?  Maybe enough generosity on our part will overwhelm God with our goodness and humility and then surely He'll answer as we desire?

There are great examples of people in the Bible who prayed fervently and then the Lord provided exactly what they prayed for.  Moses cried out to God to supply drinking water for the Israelites and God made it flow from a rock.  Elijah called down rain from heaven—and it poured.  Jesus healed multitudes.

Then there are stories of righteous followers of God who did not have their prayers answered as they wanted.  Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane prayed for the ‘cup’ (dying on the cross) to be taken from him.  Yet he still endured severe beatings and a gruesome death.  Even though Paul prayed for a ‘thorn in his side’ to be removed, he lived out his life suffering in some sort of agony.  Did these men not have enough faith?  Did they pray incorrectly?  Was God unable to answer their prayers?  

These are the questions we ask when our prayers aren’t answered in the way we hope.

But we know these men had great faith, humbly sought God, and desired God’s will above their own.  God’s will for us in a broken and sin-filled world often extends beyond our comprehension.  Unfortunately, not all prayers will be answered like we want.  

If God says ‘no’ to our prayers, does it mean He doesn’t care about us and our circumstances?  If we want to know how God responds to our suffering, then we only need to look to Jesus, who is the exact representation of the Father (Hebrews 1:3).  Whenever Jesus encountered someone in pain, he consistently showed compassion.  For example, after Jesus saw a widow whose only son had just died, “…he had compassion on her and said to her, ‘Do not weep,’” and then he raised her son to life (Luke 7:11-17).  

In another example, Mary and Martha, friends of Jesus, sent for Jesus when their brother was ill.  But Jesus delayed in coming, and their brother died.  When Jesus arrived and saw Mary and those with her weeping “…he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled” (John 11:33).  And he wept.  

How does God respond to us as we pray in our times of greatest need?  With a heart of compassion.

God lavished compassion and strength on Jesus and Paul when they prayed and yet didn’t receive the answers they requested.  When Jesus prayed for God’s will to be done in the Garden of Gethsemane, “there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him” (Luke 22:43).  Paul received reassurance from God that “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (II Corinthians 12:9).  

Whether with an angel, or a word from the Lord, God strengthened these men and let them know He was with them in their time of weakness.  And He will be with us in ours.

Is there a formula for how to pray?  

Did the eighth grade boy in the book use the wrong words when he prayed and that's why his brother wasn't healed?  He's not the only one to try bargaining with God.  Abraham bargained with God when he was concerned about a loved one (Genesis 18).  The Bible is full of different types of prayers.  What about if-then testing prayers?  Gideon wrote the book on them (Judges 6).  And these men stand out as examples of faith in Hebrews 11.  

God knows the heart of all who pray.  If anything, at least part of a formula for prayer is this:   God works on behalf of those who love Him and humbly seek Him in faith according to His perfect will.

How will we respond, though, if we don’t get what we pray for?  Will we still trust and follow God?  When Daniel’s friends were about to be thrown into the fiery furnace, they reasoned, “our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king.  But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up” (Daniel 3:17-18).  

Does that represent our hearts?  

Would we willingly walk the path of suffering if that is where God is leading us?  

I’ll always cry when I think about children dying of cancer and losing loved ones way too early.  But I take comfort in knowing that my compassion pales in comparison to God’s.  Jesus wept with mourners.  His heart ached with the death of loved ones.  In fact, the description we have of the future beyond the grave is one where “[God] will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelations 21:4).

As we humbly seek God in prayer, God may not give us the answer we want.  

However, like those in the Bible, we will likely experience His compassion, strength and grace in unimaginable ways.

Hannah's Prayer

My daughter giggled the other day as she thought about Eli accusing Hannah of being drunk early in the morning.  “Why would he think that?”  I then demonstrated how Hannah might have been pleading with God in great desperation.  My daughter looked a little amused, shocked, and mortified all at the same time.  

I explained that when kids really want something, they go to their parents—and their begging, pleading, wailing, tantrum-throwing doesn’t always look pretty!  When adults want or need something, we go to God.  Depending on how desperate we are, it doesn’t look exactly put-together either.

Passionately seeking and waiting on God to answer our deepest longings can be exhausting—physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  We often get impatient as we sit in the silence of not knowing how or when God will answer.  We ache for the certainty of a “yes” or “no.”  We rationalize that knowing how God will answer our requests would at least enable us to weep or rejoice.  

We want to get on with life instead of waiting; God wants to draw us closer to Him.

Hannah isn’t the only one who’s lived through the waiting season of unanswered prayers about health concerns, financial needs, or severed relationships.  Like many women, Hannah endured years of infertility.  For women struggling to start or add to their families today, it may seem like every magazine cover announces a celebrity birth, every facebook page drips with cooing baby pictures, and every party invitation is to someone else’s baby shower. 

In-your-face pregnancy reminders came to Hannah in the form of a fertile sister-wife.  (As repulsive as polygamy is—it’s part of her story.)  Instead of offering compassion, this woman taunted Hannah, continually pouring salt on her wounded soul.  So much so that “In bitterness of soul Hannah wept much and prayed to the Lord” (I Samuel 1:10).  

Hannah didn’t pray pretty.  

She desperately vowed to the Lord her very request saying, “O Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall touch his head” (I Samuel 1:11). 

This was about the time that Eli, the priest, thought she was drunk.  She started praying so that her lips moved but no words came out.  Could this be the picture of Romans 8:26-27?  Paul writes, “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groaning too deep for words.  And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

Eli blessed Hannah, and in the course of time she gave birth to a son.  Also in the course of time Hannah fulfilled her commitment and brought Samuel to live with Eli in order to serve the Lord.  She yielded her deepest longing, her answered prayer, to God.

God gave Hannah what her heart grew to desire—not the son she could cuddle and throw the ball to and proudly walk with to the market.  Instead, a son who was wholly God’s and would bring Him glory.  

Submitting our desires to God doesn’t necessarily mean we stop praying for them.  I believe Hannah longed for the very thing God wanted.  Through Samuel, God demonstrated His love and care for the whole nation of Israel.  Samuel—Israel’s prophet and judge—was fervently prayed into place and willingly given to God by Hannah.  God used Hannah’s soul-wrenching, drunk-looking prayer to change history.  

God wants us to come to Him with all our burdens in authentic, humble, and open-handed prayer.  Like Hannah, are we willing to uncurl our fingers around the very thing we’re praying for? 

God knows our needs and is bringing about more than just the object of our prayers.  Hannah’s time of waiting solidified in her heart who God is and united her heart to His.  She prayed, “There is no one holy like the Lord; there is no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God…for the Lord is a God who knows…” (I Samuel 2: 2-3).

In our seasons of waiting on God, God’s silence doesn’t mean He hasn’t heard our prayers.  When our circumstances appear to remain status quo, it doesn’t mean He isn’t working on our behalf and for His glory.  The same God who knew Hannah’s heart and struggles will work in our hearts and in our lives according to His timing and purpose.

Weeds

I have this conflicting relationship with weeds.  This summer I bare-knuckle wrestled deep-rooted dandelions from our yard—our lush, barefoot-begging backyard splotched with what looked like yellow chicken pox.  I tried spraying them with Round-Up last year, only to discover that I killed the nearby grass roots along with the weeds.  Now random bare patches remind me of a costly win in this on-going battle. 

But then this is my conflict.  As we drive by fields of much kinder dandelions (these are not in my yard), I tell the kids that tomorrow I will bring my camera for a family picture with them lying in the sea of vibrant yellow.  Last year, we actually paid someone good money for a family portrait of us standing in front of six-foot weeds at dusk—it’s the most complimented photo on display in our house.

Sometimes weeds and flowers can look so similar.  My apologies go out to my neighbors who endured the daisy-looking weeds nestled up to my real daises.  It took me awhile to notice the difference.

And maybe that’s partially why weeds are associated with what is unholy in Scripture.

At first glance, the weed often looks like the flower.  What is wrong can sometimes appear similar to the good and beautiful.  Isaiah wrote, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter” (Isaiah 5:20).  

It can be difficult to know the difference between variants of good and evil without the defining guidance of Scripture.  Psalm 1 indicates that the righteous person meditates day and night on God’s instruction.  Paul writes for us to “be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Romans 12:1-2).  

In some ways God’s Word could be considered the Master Gardener’s Guide to identifying weeds and flowers.  Our minds incline themselves to self-gratifying options unless they are renewed with the truth.  The best way for me to bare-knuckle wrestle any sin out of my life is to first know how to identify it.  Before it multiplies.

How quickly sin can spread throughout every corner of our lives.  We think we have what we consider a small indulgence under control, until we realize it’s changed the landscape of our hearts.  Our good desires become crowded out and overrun by unruly and unholy longings. 

I’ve had several people remind me of the definition of a weed—anything you don’t want.  Spiritually, sin is anything God doesn’t want in my life.  If I want Him to cultivate in my heart His goodness, truth, and love, then I need to yield to Him as the Gardener of my soul.  David cried out to God in Psalm 51:10, “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”  Ezekiel spoke of God replacing our hearts of stone with hearts of flesh.  God then said, “I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws” (Ezekiel 36:26-27).  

Ultimately it will be God who masterfully removes the deep-rooted weeds of selfishness in me and creates a venue of love and grace.  He will create a heart within us filled with the beauty of His love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

But God also asks us to do our part.  He calls us to be holy as He is holy (Leviticus 11:44).  At some point we have to reconcile our conflicting relationship with sin.  We can continue to settle for counterfeits of God’s goodness, like giving others self-serving love instead of costly, self-sacrificing love.  Or, we can prayerfully uproot the destructive weeds in our hearts and replace them with beautiful bouquets of God’s grace. 

Whole-Hearted Surrender

Could there be a busier time than juggling two toddlers and a couple of part-time jobs?  Yes, I found out the answer is definitely ‘YES!’  Demands and opportunities only multiply as our children grow older.  In all the busyness, one of my biggest struggles as a mom has been finding time to be with God in quietness—quietness of house and spirit.  I long for silence, the absence of demands, clarity of thought, and a full night’s rest in order to spend extended time with God in prayer and Bible study.

Crazy enough—those rare moments haven’t produced the only spiritually fruitful days as a mom in my life.  Most significantly, it’s been the days when I have whole-heartedly yielded my life to God that stand out as the most spiritually meaningful and satisfying.

For example, one morning, when I was overwhelmed and exhausted, I pleaded with God in the car to renew my relationship with Him—so that my quiet times would be engaging and that I would be fully committed to Him.  I yielded my heart, and my day.  

It happened to be that day at lunch that my 5-year old son asked me what it meant to have Jesus in his heart:  “Does Jesus crawl in?”  Thankfully I saw the opportunity to discuss his spiritual question.  He committed his life to Christ that day and made sure we invited his brother to do so as well.

It’s become a pattern.  On the days I intentionally submit my will to God’s, neighbors call with prayer requests.  Or I run into friends who are struggling and they ask for help.  It happens on those days that my children ask spiritually poignant questions on the way to school.  Am I blind to these spiritual opportunities every other day when I’m overtaken with schedules and demands the minute my alarm sounds, or do the opportunities not exist?

I believe God shows His love by purposefully leading His hurting and questioning children into the path of someone who will be a vessel for Him to minister through.  And God unquestionably works through us more powerfully to help others when we have completely yielded ourselves to Him. 

My life is peppered with ministry opportunities that are too odd to be coincidences.  Like when I surrendered my day to God and then took our kids to a blueberry patch to pick blueberries.  We spent an hour talking with the owner who wondered if the Bible was true—not because we brought it up, but because after insisting I sit with her on her porch, she asked about it.  Or the afternoon I asked God to make my heart more filled with Him than me, and then one of my Wednesday night church kids asked me to help her begin a relationship with Jesus.

Does God lead us in prayers of surrender because He wants to minister to someone and needs us to be in the right place spiritually for that to happen—or does He work because we whole-heartedly submit to Him in certain moments?  Scripture tells us the latter is significant.  One of my favorite verses is II Chronicles 16:9, “For the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His.”

Yielding our hearts doesn’t take time, as much as it takes humility and a willingness to lay down our will.  And it doesn’t take silence.  My significant surrender moments have happened in the middle of errands, exhaustion, and distractions.  The demands and busyness of motherhood may make quietness a rarity, but that shouldn’t prevent us from whole-heartedly submitting to God on a daily basis. 

Asking the Holy Spirit to fill our lives and guide us through our day will not only change our hearts, but will probably influence and change the lives of those around us as well.

Transformed for a Purpose

Do you ever feel like the majority of your time is spent accomplishing the necessities of life and so little time is spent achieving something significant and meaningful?  Whatever your role—as a business woman, a full-time mom, a caregiver, or all three—most of us desire to do something significant in the world and to be used by God.

So often we paint our picture of living out God’s purpose with elements of grand ‘Esther moments.’  Esther was able to rescue God’s helpless people from death and know that God had placed her in her exact circumstances as queen for ‘such a time as this’—to accomplish His purpose.

However, as we seek to be used by God, our lives will probably be filled less with ‘Esther moments,’ and more with ‘Mary moments.’  Mary, the mother of Jesus, was used by God to accomplish His purpose in the midst of the mundane.  Her life was influential because she was faithful in the way she went about her ordinary tasks of life. 

Unlike Esther, was Mary called to save God’s people?  No.  But she was asked to daily minister to the One who would provide eternal salvation for all.  Was Mary called to evangelize the world?  No.  She was called to prepare meals for the One who would bring the Good News into the world.  Was Mary called to heal the sick?  No.  She was chosen to compassionately bandage the skinned knee of Him who would heal the body and soul.  Mary’s great influence came not in great acts, but in tiny gestures that reverberate throughout eternity.  

No matter how insignificant we may sometimes feel, in God’s grand scheme there are no meaningless moments, no meaningless jobs.  They are all opportunities to accomplish His purpose of showing love to the world and reconciling all people to Himself.

We may not have the immediate gratification that comes with the grand impact of an Esther moment, but in our faithfulness throughout the everyday Mary moments, we can bring light and love into a dark and hurting world.  God has transformed us to accomplish this purpose.

Manna from Heaven

When God rained down food from heaven for the starving Israelites, they asked, ‘What is it?’ and called it manna.  God’s fresh provisions for His people stood as a sign of God seeing and caring.

Years later, those closest to Jesus boldly and desperately questioned if He cared.  Jesus slept soundly in a boat with His disciples as waves nearly swamped their vessel.  His disciples woke Him up and asked, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” (Mark 4:38).  In response, Jesus not only kept the boat from overturning, but He calmed the entire sea.  

And then there was Martha, overwhelmed by an internal storm of frustration as she made all of her preparations for houseguests alone, without the help of her apparently capable sister.  She equally pleaded to Jesus, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself?” (Luke 10:40).  Jesus responded by freeing her from her stress.  In contrast to society’s hierarchy of obligations, His expectations were simple.

When Jesus taught multitudes on the hillside, He miraculously provided food from five loaves of bread and two fish for over 5,000 people because He saw that the people were hungry in a remote place.  Jesus reminded the people that God provides for us physically and spiritually.  He explained, “Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died.  But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die.  I am the living bread that came down from heaven” (John 6:49-51).

Throughout history, God has tangibly provided for His people’s physical and spiritual needs in unexpected ways.  And He still does.  My kids know the story of God giving me my favorite tea.  At one point when our family was tight financially, I thought hard over every purchase we made.  I remember standing in Publix holding a peppermint tea box, thinking of whether it was what we needed or if it was just my want.  I put it back for something more sensible.  A day later, I sat at a new friend’s kitchen table.  She asked if I liked tea and pulled out a box of the same brand of peppermint tea I had held the day before.  She said she had tried it and really didn’t like it—would I want it?  I hadn’t asked God for tea in prayer, nor had I complained to Him that I didn’t feel like I should buy it.  But there in my hands was a love note—a heavenly provision which came in an unexpected way.

Lately, my 'manna' has come in the form of people—friends and family offering rides for our kids, lending books with timely messages, calling to catch up, and writing encouraging words for my soul.  God provides what we most need for our bodies—and spirits.  I’m starting to look, and to take note each day of God’s manna-provisions for me and my family.  As my son received a welcomed rest from sports practices because of snow in April, I narrated for him how God was providing exactly what he needed—rest for his sore legs—in a way he least expected.

Just like the Israelites wandering in the desert, just like those seeking to hear Jesus teach when He fed over 5,000 people, just like Jesus' disciples in an overwhelming storm, and just like Martha struggling alone in her sea of stress, we sometimes wonder if God sees and cares.

Yes, God does see and He does care when we think no one else does.  Sometimes we get to catch a glimpse of His care through His loving provisions that come at just the right time.

And yet, after continually and so faithfully providing for us, could He just as sincerely ask us, Do you see, Do you care about all the heavenly-sent blessings you receive?

My prayer is that God will help me daily to see and be gratefully aware of His fresh provisions that often come in unexpected ways--my 'manna' from heaven.