*rim shot* Okay first of all since God has decided 4am is our hour, yall may have to deal with a corny joke or two due to deliriousness. I will let my play on words in the title be #1 and here comes #2...(heard this the other day and got a chuckle from it, but it does have a point...I promise.)
A man was praying and he asked God, "God, what's a million years to you." God replies "A minute." Then the man asks "well, what's a million dollars to you?" God replies "A penny." The man enthusiastically arrives at his next question. Smiling he asks "Can I have a penny?" God smiles back. "In a minute."
God definitely works in his own time and it can very easily not be fast enough for the rest of us. He doesn't see things the way we do and time has no bearing on how he will move. I have had to learn this the hard way many times over the years. And the lesson has really begun to take root over the past year or so.
I can honestly say that the things that have transpired in my life have not necessarily been in my time or even to my liking necessarily, but God may not have the same plan as me and once I became open to his plan, things started to fall into place. Even if they didn't happen the way I wanted, when I wanted.
However, there is one thing I have done over the years fairly consistently and God revealed to me in grand fashion this year the purpose. I often write out my prayers. I have had many prayer journals over the years. They have different formats, but there are several records of many of the things I have prayed for. And as I have looked over them in the past few months I got to see which prayers were answered and I got to thank God for doing so. I got to review the ones that weren't answered and got to thank him for those too. But there is one prayer in particular that I've been praying since I was about 19 or so, that I am really just beginning to see some fruit on.
That means I spent 11 years waiting on an answer. To God, that time was nothing, but to me it seemed like an eternity and I will be honest; I often grew bitter with God and life for that prayer seeming to have no fruit. Especially since it was a prayer I was positive wasn't out of God's will. But, there were things I couldn't necessarily see or maybe I wasn't ready to see that had to happen.
Habakkuk 2:2-3 says
2 Then the LORD replied:
“Write down the revelation
and make it plain on tablets
so that a herald[b] may run with it.
3 For the revelation awaits an appointed time;
it speaks of the end
and will not prove false.
Though it linger, wait for it;
it[c] will certainly come
and will not delay.
God showed me this verse sometime within the past year and I even placed it in the front of my prayer journal. I began to get very serious about the prayers I wrote. Especially when I felt God was telling me that something was a specific vision. Whenever I heard that, this verse would drop into my heart and I would write the vision down. But I also had to become open to other things in order to see the fruit.
I had to learn to become selfless in my prayers. Was I praying these things so I could benefit or so God and others could? In the beginning...it was all about me me me me me. But once I learned to set the stage for my prayers and see how God could use them, it was a different ballgame.
Fasting was another thing I had to grow into. I HATED fasting and trust me, when I do it now it's not like I am oober excited to go without eating (if it is food that I am fasting from). But God laid it very heavy on my heart to begin fasting last year. I did it for a while, once a week, but I didn't want it to become legalistic or ritualistic, but I do listen in and do it when I feel God is calling me to do so. At the time I did it I think it served a very specific purpose and I think God was able to do things in my life he had never been free to do before, because I wasn't open to being that broken. (you'd be surprised how missing a few meals can leave you wide open to God lol)
Viewing things from God's eyes is another area that I am still continuing to grow in, but I notice that as I do that, God moves in those areas. Especially when it comes to people. I have a difficult time with personal interaction. I can't really describe it because most people see me as friendly and open, which I am, but I also get frustrated easily by people's human nature. And God has had to truly TRULY break that down in me.
I'm sure there are many more lessons to come, but being still and letting God has been the other biggy for me lately. I have really had to cherish my quiet time with God, pray throughout the day, listen to the details, and learn to fall back in many situations where I am used to taking control. By doing those things I have seen God really begin to move in my home in ways I could only have imagined.
Things are far from perfect, but I appreciate getting to know God on a deeper level than I did before. I appreciate seeing how he is moving in my children. How making simple changes has caused a domino effect to take place in the hearts of all 4 of my kids and my husband. These are things I've prayed for, but I also had to appropriately move into action.
I wrote an article years ago called When I move, You move, which talked about how God can do things, but he also has expectations out of us. God can do whatever he wants with or without our aide, but he wants us to be active participants in our blessings. In John 9, Jesus heals the blind man. He could have easily touched that man's eyes and said you are healed. He could have even just spoken the words and it happened. He could have said nothing at all and just willed it to happen, but instead he made the salve, rubbed it on the man's eyes, and then required that he go and wash the salve in a specific location to be healed.
God could easily answer our prayers too, but the fact that we have to go through certain steps and develop our relationship with God in the process makes it so much more of a blessing. God could have easily answered my prayer 11 years ago, but I doubt it would have the same impact it is having now.
I have endured many painful things. Some self-inflicted and some not, but I can say that God is able to use all things to his glory...in his time. 11 years may have seemed like a long time to wait for a blessing, but it beats waiting for a minute in God's eyes. :D
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