Have you ever had that thought? I have. Not recently, but a few very memorable times in the past. I guess whether you continue to pray about something is not so much the issue, but why you decide to stop praying. Do you feel that you are within God's perfect will?...or are you feeling like giving up because there is silence answering you back at this moment?
There have been times when I listened to a voice of discouragement and stopped praying because I felt hopeless. That is not from God. Even when God says no he does it with encouragement and hope. He will give you more than you are asking for, it will just look different, or you will find that it was better not to get what you wanted.
Seeing life from a Godly perspective often means surrendering your will for His. So instead of giving up on prayer for what you want I want you to change your prayer today. This is my prayer.
Lord,
Today I am so thankful that I have you as my God, my Lord, and my Savior. I am thankful for what you have given me, and what you have said no about. I want to give you my life, my family, my future. Make it and mold it to reflect how much I love and depend on you now. I am not afraid of the weakness of my humanity, only being separated from You. But your word says you will never leave nor forsake me so that one is covered. I ask you to do what you will with the pain I am feeling and I know that might mean you will take it away and it might mean you will give me strength to live with it. But best of all I know that what ever you choose will be within your good and perfect will. I will be happy where I am and love who and what is here to love.
In Jesus Name I pray,
Amen.
I love this pic from a bloggers site. It captures so much of my heart. I love the Lord with all my heart. More than anything in life or on earth or in Heaven above. But a desire of my heart was to go into full time missions in Peru a couple years back. I never could have imagined at the time that God would not want me there. That it wasn't about Him not wanting me...it was about where He wanted me, to be, to serve and the fact that He knew best. My husband and I did all we could humanly do to try and get there and God closed doors we had no control over. He took us where we never imagined we would go. Different church, different jobs, different ministries, with very little the same. Most things in life changed completely.
Monday I went to the doctor for my post operation appointment, from my laparoscopy, and found out that the diagnoses I was given 20+ years ago was incorrect. I am 100% endometriosis free. Yet my friends, family, and I had been praying that the surgery would show that the endometriosis was bad enough to get me a hysterectomy for relief of the pain I suffer from abdominally. Never did we think that it would not be there. Confused...a little. I accepted that diagnoses a long time ago and have been at the mercy of it for years. Now we face a chapter where we have not idea (again) what is causing the problems. Another test, sometime soon, to rule things out or in for a different diagnoses. I am in a place where I have no idea what is gonna happen or what is gonna come out of this now. I am praising God for the endometriosis NOT being there. I could claim this as a healing, but the symptoms and problems still. You always want to give God the glory, but I want to be accurate. The way I was diagnosed so many years ago is not even considered a reliable way of diagnosing today so I may never have had it. Doesn't matter to me either way, though we all love to receive healing, because it is God either way to me. He spared me or He healed me. End of that Story. But I still suffer from pain that is unexplained and it may be just more neuropathy, now in my abdominal region. Though diagnosed with MS twice over the last 8 years the neurologists finally concluded that I have an undiagnosed neurological condition. This causes the pain in my legs that is pretty much there, to some degree, all the time. It sometimes effects other areas. My eye sight and pupil function. My hands and feet. I have had episodes where it effected my speech and hearing. The list is even longer, but the answer is the same. I had anomalies on my brain in MRI scans and they said that they were possible lesions and diagnosed me with MS then they went away. I have claimed healing by God in the past for this, but I do not know what still causes the pain. So I am not sure it was a healing from MS, but rather God giving me strength in the unknown. Trust. Not the answers that were easy, understandable, or what I thought they were going to be. But I trust my God. I know my life is His and where it goes and even how long it lasts is in His hands. I trust and rest in Him. I realize that I may just have another new pain to live with. That God may say no to a healing, but He will never leave me or give me more than I can handle as long as I am with Him. It definitely keeps me from doing too much that He may not want me to do. But I guess I now pray for guidance as to how to get beyond this present trouble and go where he would have me.
I trust He will have an answer for me on that one :)
Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:7-10
I have spent years trying to tap into the meaning of this and understand it. I often feel weak. Broken. I always feel like my health is a battle ground for spiritual warfare. It is one area that can break me. And it is one area where I choose to draw close to God and realize my weakness and His power. It doesn't mean that I don't cry when in pain, feel overwhelmed by some things in my life, etc. We all have our moments. But where do we go when those moments come. If we turn to the Lord and ask for his help and he leaves us where we are at, it means there is something to learn from this experience and somehow it is being used for the greater good. Knowing that this is possibly how God is working is not enough. You need to know He is in control and this is Him. This verse helps me to remember that. The great workers of the New Testament, that often we elevate to beyond feeling their hardships, really suffered in so many ways. Mental and physical distress and illness came upon them too, but where did they end up. In victory as we can be in victory because:
"God's grace is sufficient for everyone. His power is made perfect in Weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on us. That is why, for Christ's sake, WE delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when we are weak, then we are strong!"
Blessings my friends, stay strong in your weakness.
