How does worry drive our prayers?

I’ve been pondering this a lot lately as God has forced my hand at surrendering to Him what I cannot control. The truth is there will always be something amiss to inhabit our prayers and lead us into worry. We live in a “fallen & fractured world” as Sarah Young reminded me in my morning reading lately.

Things are not as they should be. There is brokenness everywhere it seems–in the wider world to be sure–our culture, families, education, society–injustice, lawlessness and sin abound. There is also much that is out of sorts close at hand–in body, soul and spirit. Our dear loved ones not living as God intended–full and free lives– facing challenges at every turn, some of them caused by their own making. And relationships which should grow and flourish seem to be lifeless.

But God.

God’s love never ends. His plans will stand, as the lines in Psalm 31 declare.

The counsel of the LORD stands forever,

the plans of his heart from generation to generation. Psalm 33:11

So, instead of despairing, I am learning to surrender and pray. Pray in confidence of who God is, what He can do and what He has at the ready on my behalf and of those I love.

And so I pray, Let your Kingdom come, Lord, on earth as it is in heaven.

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This Bears Repeating

The world is not as it should be. My world is not as it should be.

Challenges and troubles abound. People are broken, things go wrong, turn upside down and inside out. Relationships are prickly and difficult.

In our knowers we sense a better way–for wholeness, health, holiness. For fairness, for rescue, for justice, in spheres large and small–ours and that of the world surrounding us.

This is God’s doing–that we would long for His kingdom to come to Earth as it is in Heaven. And yet we were not made for this Earth, but for Heaven.

God knows this. We know this. Hence, the longing in our hearts.

And so we pray, “Let your will be done, Father, on earth as it is in Heaven.”

Amen.

We ask and pray in confidence that there is a some day when every injustice will be made right, every broken and shattered life will be made whole, and perfect healing will come, perhaps not here on Earth but most assuredly in Heaven.

What, Me Worry? (Since you Asked…)

The last nine months have personally been very difficult. Those closest to my family and I (and some of you, dear readers) know the slough of despond we were given to walk through. Many, many times I wanted to give up this good fight for the health and well being of a dear family member.

I despaired many times that things would ever change or get better, that any light would come.

But it has as of just this week. While the situation at hand seemed to drag on and on these last nine months, the resolution actually came quicker than any of us expected, taking us completely by surprise.

And of course, that is the way of God, is it not? Although we are often unfaithful in our trust of his goodness and care, His faithfulness never ends. And He longs to surprise us.

As I type these words it occurs to me that every author likes to write the last line in the last chapter of a long book, especially if the ending is a satisfying conclusion to a challenging and arduous tale. Of course, as readers we savor that satisfaction as well.

And such is the end of this particular chapter in our family’s life, (although it is just the beginning for the person for whom we prayed.) There is much to rejoice in and celebrate, to note in detail in the pages of my journal not only what God did for this particular person, but what He’s done in me.

My assurance and confidence of God’s love has deepened like never before, not only for me but for those whose lives intertwine with mine.

And isn’t that the bedrock of our faith? The trust we have in God’s neverending love and care?

But bedrock takes time to settle. And as trite as it seems to say, things take the time they take; nine months seems just right to grow something new.

Worry may try to creep in and overtake my thoughts, but the truth is God holds everything in His hands.

So I lift up mine in surrender and thanks, laying my worry at God’s throne and repeating my prayers, not because He is hard of hearing. No. But because I need to hear myself say, “God, you are good and kind and perfect. And you have all the time in the world to accomplish your will. Amen.”

Sharing this, too, from my favorite poet Luci Shaw, “Our Prayers Break on God.”

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Friends, our Scripture Walk through Psalm 37 is very much in the back of my mind and the next entry will resume soon. Once I catch my breath.