I’m going to preface this blog and let you know that I am
honestly writing it for selfish motives… I needed this reminder today, however
I would love for you to be able to pull from it whatever you can! Thanks for reading… still… MONTH 11 J
While back in Nigeria, month 8 of the race (I can hardly
believe that was almost 3 months ago) I faced a very large transition point in
the Race. As many of you know
Nigeria was a rather rough month for me (as well as the people on my
team). We had just faced a team
change, a rather large one at that, and no sooner had a week gone by with my
new team than 2 of those new team members got very sick, one with malaria, the
other with typhoid.
I am happy to report that both are doing just fine now.
(Side Note: One thing that I have
learned on the Race is that God is a healer, and that ALL healing is a miracle,
no matter the timing. I,
therefore, am happy to report that I have witnessed at least 2 miracles on the
race in the healings of these two teammates.)
Although my time in Nigeria was by far the hardest month of
the race for me, God taught me some amazing things in that month… things I am
really only now beginning to realize.
One of those lessons was taught during the sickness of both of those
teammates.
I was praying one night, at one of the all night prayer
vigils, and all I could feel was this overwhelming anxiety in my spirit. I was praying for the team that I had
just left (and at the time felt like I had lost), the new team I had just
joined, and the healing of my teammates.
My prayers felt like they were bouncing off of the walls… and right back
into my ears. Honestly I began to
grow frustrated and tired. I had
experienced this feeling before in my prayers, and it was part of the reason
that, up until this point, I didn’t really even enjoy praying in depth about
anything at all. Every prayer felt
full of anxiety, and what was worse… like God wasn’t really listening.
However, this night God gave me a very interesting
revelation about myself and about prayer in general. In that early hour of the morning, in the middle of Nigeria,
God showed me how each prayer I prayed was a prayer of fear, not of faith or
trust. I was praying with the
mindset that I had to talk God into answering the prayers I was praying. When
they felt like they weren’t being heard (like I was hitting that wall) anxiety
grew and I began to repeat my prayers over…. and over…. and over… filled with
fear that God wouldn’t answer if I didn’t do such things.
I realized that I had prayed this way my whole life. Usually these prayers became more
prevalent when what I was praying for “seemed” impossible. A relationship I wanted to hold on to
so dearly that felt like was slipping away, a healing I wanted to see take
place but didn’t really know if God would do, finances I needed that seemed too
great at the time… etc.
However in God’s goodness and His faithfulness, He showed me
then and there that I don’t need to pray filled with anxiety and fear. Ever!!! No matter the circumstance… no matter how great the
“impossibility”. I only need to
know the ONE that I am praying to, and allow the knowledge, the intimacy in the
relationship with HIM, to be the catalyst behind my prayers. For whether He would answer with a
“yes” or “no” or any of the other creative ways in which He answers sometimes…
it doesn’t change who HE is and the promises He has given and CONTINUES to
give.
Remembering that God is faithful… remembering that He is good
and works things to my good… remembering that He LOVES. so incredibly well…
ALWAYS (Good or bad.. .these things are true, although it does seem easier to
see them sometimes in the good).
When we focus on Him, even in our heaviest of prayers, those prayers
never need be filled with anxiety and fear… because like the old hymn goes “I
know whom I have believed in and am persuaded that He is able, to keep that
which I’ve committed unto Him against that day.”
