Inspired
by the DEVO originally published 9-19-2013
Happy Thursday to all
my precious brothers and sisters in Christ~
The Bible is filled
with stories of folks who endured difficulties. Sometimes it was for a few days,
sometimes it was years. Remember the woman who bled for 12 years?
However, Jonah was swallowed by a huge fish and lived through that
nightmare, stuck in that smelly belly, for three days. Three days! It took a few years
for God to answer my prayers about my child’s questionable relationship
choices. My buddy, however,
who was no more/no less distraught then me, received her wonderful and
life-giving answer within six short days. Oh well. Nevertheless, the timing is
not up to me or you but rather God.
While I am the first
to humbly admit that I do not have all the answers, I do see a possible
explanation why God has different time frames for His children, and this first
occurred to me in 1990. Jorge and I saved up and bought three-year-old Hormone
a Power Wheels electric jeep for Christmas that year. Its maximum speed was
about five MPH. However, what about if I would have given Hormone the keys to a
brand new full-sized jeep instead? Trust
me, he would have gladly taken them, but it would have been too much too soon
and too dangerous. As his parents, Jorge and I knew that Hormone was only ready
for a toy car.
Our heavenly Father
giving us what we want when we want it, no matter what, could also be dangerous
or at the very least, not in our best interests. I have often said that as
difficult as it was seeing my child making the poor choices I mentioned at the
beginning of this DEVO, it taught me so much about prayer and keeping the
faith. That entire, long, seemingly-interminable season of heartache and
anguish pushed me to my knees, and I can now say I am grateful for all I
learned.
I want to encourage
everyone who is facing a problem today, who is in the smelly belly of the beast
of an emotional, physical, relational and/or financial problem, know that you have
options. Yes, God controls the timing, "He makes everything beautiful in
its time (Ecclesiastes 3:11)," but as you wait on Him, "Ask, and it will
be given to you, seek, and you will find, knock, and the door will be opened
(Matthew 7:7)."
In Jonah’s case, and
in the case of every Biblical story where God shows up and fixes the mess,
prayer was a precursor to deliverance. It doesn't matter if we bring our problems on ourselves through poor choices like Jonah did (see Jonah chapter one). Or if like the disciples, who found themselves in the middle of a storm
because they were following Christ, we are blindsided while
minding our business or even doing something good. Either way, the first step
we must always take to get out of the mess, is to pray. Pray when
you mess up, pray when someone else messes up, pray when life just happens.
P-R-A-Y!
PRAYER: Dear Lord, We
always want instant relief. No one likes being in the smelly belly of problems. And sometimes we have to muster up all our faith to
trust You while we wait. But Your Word is clear: We must pray before anything
else. We must talk it over with You. We must invite You in to do Your thing.
There is a divine and amazing blessing that always takes place when we declare
our trust in You. Nevertheless, answer our prayers! In Jesus' name, AMEN~
