I have always tried to journal. I have a few journals (more than I'm proud of) in my room - nice journals, glossy and new, with crisp, creamy pages, and one entry that smacks something of "I'm going to write in your every day, new journal friend!" Well, now I'm making no such promise, and hopefully this will not be the same such failed journaling, just relocated. It really might be... but I hope not. My hope in the success of this (and my confidence in my own writing) is low enough that I'm not telling anyone I'm now a blogger (which is a distasteful thing to say of yourself anyway). This is really just for me. So if it doesn't work, then I guess who cares?
I have a new mentor, Heather. She's marvelous. She's more wise and more insightful than she knows. Her husband says we're the same in ways that neither of us sees - he must be right because she is onto me big time, even when I'm trying to skirt. Anyway, she said something in passing that changed my life with God. I should probably tell her that.. She asked a group of us during RA training - if you could have one spiritual superpower, what would it be? Well, I had oh so many grand plans. Supernatural peace. Supernatural joy. Supernatural kindness. Supernatural wisdom. Oh but how wonderful would it be if I could actually get one of those, like ole Solomon (unfortunate go to man for underused potential... if God had given me all that special wisdom, I'd do WAY better with it than Solomon... I'd be writing stuff full of hard-hitting, major awesomeness, instead of the whiny, angsty stuff you find in Ecclesiastes (right?)) Anyway, that's what she asked and I thought up a whole bunch of noble choices and then silently lamented the fact that those could never be mine. Her next question was this - if you really believe that God listens to you and wants the best for you, why would you think that He wouldn't give that to you if you asked? I was floored. What a revolutionary thing to think! And I had no good answer at all. Why don't I pray for exactly what I want? Big things? Huge things? Supernatural things? We hedge our prayers: instead of praying that God' will supernaturally heal someone, we pray for wisdom for the doctor. Wisdom for the doctor is a wonderful and necessary thing to pray, but why don't we also add in that we wish God would just supernaturally heal this person? He CAN. He doesn't have to, and our faith in Him shouldn't be shattered or shaken if He chose not to, but why not ask? If we really have faith that He will do what's right, then I think we can confidently tell Him exactly what we'd like to see and then be trusting and content with whatever He chooses to do. Personally, I don't ask for the big thing because I'm afraid of what will happen to me and my faith if that isn't what happens. If I pray for a safe thing, like wisdom for the doctor (a thing that will probably be there anyway), then I can reaffirm my own faith and not have to be shaken when the big thing I prayed for wasn't delivered. It's like those fortune tellers who tell you vague things that could apply to anyone so they seem real. I pray for vague, simple things so that pretty much anything that happens could be mentally manipulated into fitting as an answer to prayer. I think I'm trying to affirm and boost my own faith by praying for stuff that isn't too much of a stretch. There is a section in Le Petit Prince where this king of this planet (who really isn't a king at all because he's living there alone) is so desperate to rule that when the little prince comes there, the king orders him to do all the things that he's already doing anyway (like, sometimes yawn and sometimes don't) so that, whatever the little prince does, the king's authority is confirmed. I think that's what I do with faith that God answers prayers. I'm secretly a little insecure about how well that actually works, so I pray for easy things that will probably be there anyway so that I can feel better about prayer working and God really being helpful. Heather changed this for me. Since she said that to me, I have started praying big things, hard things, things that would be REALLY noticeable if they came true and really noticeable if they didn't. This requires a lot more faith. And it requires that you completely trust that, even if God doesn't deliver on the big thing you asked for, He did listen and chose to do a better thing. It's much more dangerous, this big praying. If you're not REALLY sure that He's there and listening and able, this big praying could crush you. It's formidable and I'm just beginning to work with it. I think it's real and big and important though and I think we've let it go in the name of being reasonable. God said to be faithful and confident and consistent in our prayers, never "reasonable."
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