A Prayer

Father, the blog didn’t have any visitors last week; zero, not even me!! I haven’t written for you in more than a week, I guess that’s pretty obvious, I haven’t really tried either, but I usually don’t have to, to try I mean. Take last time; you practically dragged me out of bed to write!! And I was trying to sleep! Why not now?

I’m not complaining Lord, just asking really… is there something you’re trying to show me, trying to teach me? Is it time that I stopped leaning on you so heavily to use the gift the gift you gave me, like a toddler learns to walk away from his father’s helping hands… even though even then they are never out of reach; and then from walking and on to running… somehow that is beautiful Lord…

Is it time for me to stop waiting for you to tell the whole story through me and just go on the hints and nudges I get throughout the week? Those that are enough for me to put down a single sentence, or sometimes a paragraph and never see it through… is it time for me to go back through the drafts I’ve written and try to finish them? Or should I be trying to look for more readers? Is there someone you want to read something here that I need to reach out to find? Cuz I know I pretty much stopped trying to look for visitors when no one really seemed interested, just polite I guess. Or is this just your way of telling me that the waiting isn’t enough, that I need to somehow follow up on that promise to become an actual working cog in church; to volunteers my other talents, whatever they are, for the furtherance of your will?

Is it any of this Lord? Or am I just stabbing in the dark? Inferring meaning where there is none?

I do not know, I do not know Lord, but this time I will not give up; not on the writing. It’s been my dream, my passion for too long, and finally I finally found a way to do it for you… Or should I say you showed me a way to do it for you; showed me to surrender it and let you work through me… most times at least.

I will not give up Lord, I cannot believe that you have brought me this far just to leave me in the dark; I guess all I have to do is open my eyes and see where you are pointing me, where you are heading me too Father.

Teach me Father, bless me and guide me Lord, guide me according to your own marvelous will.

In Jesus’ Holy Name…

Amen.

Want

Have you ever wanted something badly? And wanted it now no matter what God says? Praying for it day and night no matter what answer you get?

I have. I remember wanting something so bad that nothing could stop me from getting it, no matter what I had to do. I figured as long as my conscience was clear, I was good to go. Yes, I prayed about it, knowing my own determination I actually prayed that God get in my way if He really didn’t want me to have it!! And yeah, He did, but for some reason I always just looked at whatever obstacle He’d put in my way as another challenge, just another thing I had to do to prove how much I wanted what I wanted.

I did everything I had to get it, even going beyond what I had to. No, my conscience wasn’t perfectly clear all the way, but it was nothing I couldn’t rationalize away. In the end, I guess like the persistent widow and the judge (Luke 18: 1-8) I got what I wanted, and even though even as I finally crossed that finishing line I wasn’t too sure if it was worth all I had done to get it, somewhere, somehow, I had convinced myself that that was indeed what I wanted so I should be happy, nay ecstatic; and so I was, for a while, a very short while.

And then slowly, reluctantly, I realized that I had pretty much strong armed God into giving me what I wanted. And somehow it didn’t seem like it was worth it after all, good, yes, worth some of it, yes, but not worth everything I had done just to get where I was standing.

Then I also realized that if I had only waited, just waited for God’s time, yes, I would have gotten it just the same, just not at as high a cost to myself; if I had waited I would have had the time to actually think about how much I really wanted it. And if I had waited, I would have had a much larger selection to choose from…

So right now, looking back, yes, I wish I had waited, but I didn’t. Was it worth it? No, not really, but the lesson I learnt was; God loves me, completely and unconditionally, and yes, He knows what is best for me, knows when is it best for me, all I need is a little patience…

Next time I am faced with a decision like that, with something that I want that much, I pray that I remember this lesson and just wait, just wait and let Him lead, let Him choose, after all, He does know what’s best for me, when it is best for me. And yes, that’s what He wants for me too. All I have to do is let Him lead…

Resolutions

I’m guessing by now most of us have already made their new year’s resolutions, maybe even broken them already. :). I’ve never been one for making New Year’s resolutions; I’m more the kind who figures if I want to change something, change it now, don’t wait for a particular day or season to make the change. Besides, it almost seems part of the resolution making tradition that sooner or later we will break those resolutions, more likely sooner.

Why is that though? Is it because we don’t believe we can do what we set out to do? I don’t think so, coz otherwise we wouldn’t have bothered making the resolution anyway. Laziness? More likely, much more likely.

But that’s beside the point. What kind of resolutions do we make? The kind that are to build us? And how? Do we ever remember to pray before making them? To involve God in the decisions we make before we cast them in stone? And when we do make the resolution, whatever it is, do we surrender it to Him and ask for His help in fulfilling it?

Sure, the resolutions might seem pretty hard to live up to after a while, say if I want to drop a bad habit, but then I need to realize that I cannot do it alone, and there is no better person, no better friend who can help me through it that God himself… I did mention we are friends, right? At least, He is always my friend, always there for me, always there to catch me when I fall, even when I am not being his friend.

And yes, the resolutions we make with God’s help are going to be hard to keep, coz yes, He is God and he holds us to what may humanly seem like a ridiculously high standard, a standard we probably won’t be able to reach on our own; but that is the point of faith, is it not? If we only let Him, He will lift us to it…
If we but let Him…


Oh yeah, Happy New Year…