With the Ringing of the Phone

I have a confession to make.  Sometimes I wonder if God is really listening to my prayers.  I know intellectually that He is, but there are those moments when my emotions tend to override my intellect and I find myself wandering through a wilderness experience in life questioning whether or not the Lord is listening to my cries for guidance and strength.  If I were tempted to beat myself up over that moment of weakness, the devil would surely be more than happy to help me do so.  Sometimes faith is just plain hard work done in the face of what seems to be overwhelming evidence that we're in this thing called life pretty much alone.

The truth of the fact is simple:  Faith is only real, growing faith when it's all we have.  No evidence.  No clear indication of God's hand at work in a situation.  No real human reason why we should believe that the Lord cares for us and is always listening and working on our behalf.  Faith is simply faith.  It is a strong belief in God based on spiritual apprehension (understanding) rather than proof or immediate verification.  Often, our faith is all we have to hold onto during tough or uncertain times.  And every time we exercise faith, God not only sees, but He rewards us for that.

Earlier this morning I was sitting in my recliner praying about a certain situation that currently exists in my life.  It seems as if I've been praying about it for quite some time now, but I still do not have any clear, concise answer as to what is happening or what the future holds for me in this regard.  Today, I asked simply:  "Lord, if it is Your will, please give me just a glimpse into Your plan.  I'm weary in waiting, and I need Your strength and assurance to continue on in the battle."  I picked up my Bible and opened it to the book of Job. 

"There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job; and that man was blamelss and upright (righteous), and one who [reverently] feared God and abstained from and shunned evil [because it was wrong]."

(Job 1:1)

During the time of Job, righteousness was measured by adherence to the Law of Moses.  However, with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, righteousness became available to all who choose to accept His sacrifice and identify with the Son of God as personal Lord and Savior.  Therefore, by virtue of my salvation through Christ, I am righteous in the eyes of God... not perfect, mind you, but righteous nonetheless.  

"For the Lord delights in Justice and forsakes not the righteous."  (Psalm 37:28)

I am assured today that God is listening to my prayers.  The telephone rang during my Bible study and it was to offer me a glimpse into what might be ahead for my ministry.  I still don't have all the answers, but God has graciously and lovingly reassured me that He knows the desires of my heart and He wills to give them to me in His perfect timing.  So, today I will tackle the challenges of this day.  Tomorrow is still unknown... to me, that is.  How I rejoice in the omniscience [infinite knowledge] of God.  In Him, I can rest with the assurance that all will come to pass as it should and at just the right time.  To borrow a phrase from an old commercial, "Oh, what a relief it is!"

"Trust (lean on, rely on, and be confident) in the Lord and do good; so shall you dwell in the land and feed surely on His faithfulness, and truly you shall be fed.  Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He will give you the desires and secret petitions of your heart; commit your way to the Lord [roll and repose each care of you load on Him]; trust (lean on, rely on, and be confident) also in Him and He will bring it to pass.  And He will make your uprightness and right standing with God go forth as the light, and your justice and right as [the shining sun of] the noonday.  Be still and rest in the Lord; wait for Him and patiently lean yourself upon Him."

(Psalm 37:3-7a)

Following the Call of God

Listening for and waiting on God has never been easy for me.  I'm the kind of gal who likes to be in charge.  I like all my ducks in a row, marching to my beat, obedient to my voice, and quietly submissive to my leading.  Poor little ducks!  This past year has been a time for me to look critically at my desire to control the details of my life.  I have had to confess that I haven't been very good at relinquishing that control to God.  But praise the Lord, He is faithful to forgive when we come to Him in repentance and ask for His strength to change.

It seems to me, we humans spend a lot of time waiting.  We wait in the grocery line, we wait at the doctor's office, we wait "on hold" on the telephone, we wait for our dinner at the restaurant.  Most of the time, we do those things with little, if any, complaining.  We just seem to accept that waiting is a normal part of daily life on this planet.  So, why is it we rail so vehemently when asked to wait on God?  When we pray, we seem to expect an immediate answer that is in line with our desires.  If God does not act within moments, or if He chooses a different answer than we had anticipated, we're quick to mumble and lose faith.  We will wait patiently for a total stranger to answer our phone call, but we demand instantaneous attention from the God of all creation.  How strange is that?!

For this past year I have been waiting on God to reveal His plan for my life.  In obedience to His call, I entered into full-time seminary studies at a time in life when my friends and acquaintances are entering into leisurely retirement status.  This semester I also enrolled in a Biblical counseling training institute to learn the practice of nouthetic counseling.  For clarification's sake, "nouthetic counseling is the wise application of biblical truth to persons who have experienced a breakdown of the normal, sanctification process, in order to remove the various causes of the breakdown while, at the same time, endeavoring to help them seize upon the breakdown as an opportunity to achieve greater spiritual growth." (an excerpt taken from a Jan. 17, 2009 posting on the website for the Institute For Nourthetic Studies)  To date, I have no idea where all this education and training will take me.  I have had to walk in simple faith through each day, each semester believing that my obedience to God will result in His reward.  How that will be manifested in my life is yet to be seen.

I suspect that there are many others out there who have felt the call of the Holy Spirit upon their hearts and who have questioned how or why such a call would come to them.  Perhaps they are in advanced years, maybe their health is a concern, finances might be in question... whatever the reason(s) may be, they have chosen to ignore that still, small voice.  My friends, we can only ignore God for a brief period of time without suffering the unrest and troubled spirit that accompanies such a choice.

In his article "Following the Call of God,"  author Mark Hiehle points to some of the benchmarks that characterize God's call upon our lives:
1.  God uses ordinary people, and He calls them in the midst of the ordinary duties of life.
2.  God moves ahead of us, preparing the way.
3.  God starts with a vision.
4.  God will speak personally to you.
5.  God will confirm the call.
6.  Others will oppose the call.  (And you may be certain of that!!  My comment, not Hiehle's.) 
7.  God wants you to follow the call.
8.  Go all out in following God's call, for no one can answer that call but you.

If you have felt the call of God upon your heart, but you have ignored that voice, it may be because you do not choose to wait on Him to reveal His full plan for your life.  You want all the answers now.  You want to clearly see the road map and know the precise direction you will take to get to a pre-disclosed destination.  Yet, if we knew all those things, we would not be stepping out in faith, we would simply be following a plan... our plan, not necessarily God's plan.  Stepping out in faith is not an easy thing to do.  Remember what my dear friend, Norma, has told me:  "Faith is like a muscle- it only grows stronger when we exercise it."   Now may be the time you have been called to exercise your faith muscle like never before.  Rest assured, however, that the rewards will far exceed the demands.

Make the choice today to follow the call that God has placed upon your heart.  Trust Him to be who He says He is and to do what He promises He will do.  I guarantee you won't be disappointed in the results.

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight."  (Proverbs 3:5-6)

God's Waiting Room

I recently enjoyed an enlightening and lively conversation with a dear friend of mine over the phone.  This is not an unusual occurrence, since this particular friend lives several hundreds of miles away from me and the telephone is our frequent choice for connecting with one another.  She is also a very bright, intuitive, and spiritual woman.  We often discuss matters of our faith and share concerns with each other; we also laugh a lot and encourage each other.  It is a beneficial friendship and one that has stood the test of many years.

This particular conversation was centered on some unanswered questions in my friend's life and a certain level of frustration she is feeling with what she referred to as "God's silence on these matters."  According to this dear friend of mine, she has prayed fervently to the Lord seeking His clear direction for a number of serious issues with which she is currently wrestling.  Not unlike myself, my friend is a woman who likes to have control of the things going on around her.  She is highly organized and methodical in her approach to daily chores and jobs, and she is a task-oriented individual.  When trying to accomplish a particular task, this woman identifies obstacles to her success quickly and is swift to address and remove those obstacles... she is a consummate problem solver, some would say.  However, right now she has found herself in that most uncomfortable of places-- that is, God's waiting room.  It is an uncomfortable, unsettling place for her.  She desperately wants answers, but God doesn't appear to be answering any of her questions right now.  To her heart, He remains silent.

I, too, am a highly organized and methodical person.  I am a take-charge kind of gal.  I want to know that not only are all my ducks in a row, but they are all marching along obediently to the beat of my tiny drum.  I don't like unanswered questions, nor do I enjoy waiting on the Lord to answer them.  Some people would refer to me as a Type A personality.  Whatever the label, suffice to say that waiting patiently on God to act in answer to my prayers is typically not something at which I am very skilled.  Hello!  Can anyone out there identify with my friend and me?

If I have learned anything in this faith walk of mine, it is that God's timing is never the same as mine; His ways are never mine.  Nonetheless, His timing is always perfect, as are His methods of action.  My son, Shawn, once said to me (oh, by the way... Shawn is also a Type A sort of guy-- the apple didn't fall far from the tree there!):  "You know, Mom, I have found that when faced with any given situation in my life, I am able to come up with about 1,000 ways in which I figure God could act on my behalf.  And I don't hesitate to let Him know all His options.  But you know what?  It seems He always chooses way #1,001."  As I have often thought of Shawn's insight, I am convinced that the Lord is quick to remind His children that it is HE who is in charge of this universe.  God is still on His throne, and He is still diligently at work in the lives of believers... whether it is in our timing, our way, or not.

My friend shared that she has prayed "so hard" that she simply cannot understand why God has not given her answers to her questions.  I was reminded of how hard Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, and how (when he went to check on his disciples) his companions failed him time and again.  In fact, the disciples just kept falling asleep.  How frustrated Christ must have felt.  Not only did his best friends not support him in prayer at that time, but his repeated trips to the throne of grace went unanswered by God... and He was Christ's own Father.  I know there have been many times I have prayed fervently, sincerely, passionately.  And yet, not once have I prayed with such a burden of heart that I have actually sweat "...great drops of blood" as Jesus did there in that garden.  Yet, in the end, Christ humbly stated, "Nevertheless, not my will, but Your will be done, Father." 

I did not possess any miraculous answers for my friend that day.  The beautiful part of our friendship is that she didn't really expect me to.  I just listened and tried to understand.  I promised to pray with her for those long-sought-after answers.  Then my friend said this:  "I just don't understand what God is doing here."  With just a moment of quiet thought, I replied:  "And aren't we blessed to not understand our God?  After all, if we did we would be worshiping our contemporary, not our Lord and the God of all creation."  Our finite human minds will never be capable of understanding the infinite.  We will never see the "whole picture" as He does.  We do not serve our equal... we serve Almighty God.

The next time you find yourself in God's waiting room and are tempted to complain or feel sorry for yourself, remember that He alone is worthy of our worship.  He alone is omniscient (all knowing), omnipotent (all powerful), omnipresent (everywhere in all things), and eternal (without limits of time).  With God there is no past, present, or future... all things are one great, unbroken now.  It is not a matter of whether He has been faithful in the past, nor is it a question of whether He will be faithful some time in the future.  God is faithful NOW.  His silence may be a part of drawing us closer to Him.  Perhaps we're just too busy telling Him what we think He should do... and we cannot hear His voice over our own.  May we all learn to rest as we wait on Him.

  "But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."

(Isaiah 40:31)