blessings ... part 238

Thank you, Laura Story for Blessings!  This is going to be the song that characterizes this past year for me, I have no doubt.  I know for so many of us, the truth of its words have spoken what our hearts have walked through this year.  As I was driving to work this morning, I was moved again to tears to know in new ways the truth and to feel in such powerful ways that someone else understands this place.

We pray for blessings
We pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
All the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love is way too much to give us lesser things

My heart has been so burdened for so many needs ... for God to restore marriages, for him to sell houses and property, for him to bring longawaited dreams to life, for him to bring peace and healing, for him to protect and provide, for Him to draw hearts to Him.  Being reminded in Psalm 121 that He does indeed hear and He answers ... He does not slumber and He protects (Psalm 122) on this journey.

Just yesterday, I was talking with a dear friend about a situation we are praying for and told her, I think we need to pray BIG ... maybe all that is happening now is just setting the stage for what God wants to accomplish in the end.  Why would we ever pray less than big??  to the one whose love is way too much to give us lesser things!  We can pray BIG ... we don't have to worry if we pray for big things and that is not God's plan that it'll make Him look bad ... He so changes us to trust His heart and His hand.  I love that the threesome in the furnace told Nebuchadnezzar, Our God CAN save us, but even if He chooses not to, we will not bow.  If only we could pray that same, our God CAN, but even if He doesn't, we still trust Him.  I'm tired of praying for things that I could conceivably do alone ... what about you??

'Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise
In my Wild Good Chase study I've been in the section that deals with the role failures play in the Spirit's working in our lives.  And you know, in my life, the things that have seemed the hardest and the most like failures have really been the things that have propelled me to take a step that my "comfort" would have prohibited.  That's how I got to seminary, that's how I stepped back into campus ministry.  I still remember Tex telling me, "You better get things staright with God so all of those teachers can have their jobs back!"  Ummmm ... really??  Don't tell him (his ego couldn't handle it) but he was right! 

I think that is so much what God is doing in my life right now.  We stop trusting God for BIG things, we quit operating on HIS power (because we can do it "good enough" on our own steam), and we quit living life in a stance of readiness because we just don't see God ourselves moving.  Mark Batterson related the story of how the school NCC was meeting in closed.  That seemed devastating to this new church plant ... but it was exactly what propelled them to find other options ... and led them to the movie theater in Union Station.  How easily we settle for little, lesser things rather than looking to God for better things.  We settle.  We get comfortable.  We stop expecting.  We see God as only a little bigger than us and seek to ask Him to bless our efforts rather than letting Him show out.  We are so content with lesser things.

We pray for wisdom
Your voice to hear
And we cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt Your goodness, we doubt Your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough
All the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we'd have faith to believe

I loved getting into the Psalms again this week and love that Psalm 121 reminds us to look to the mountains ... for where does our help come from?  Our help comes from the Lord, the MAKER of Heaven and Earth ... the parter of the Red Sea, the One who rained fire on Sodom and Gomorreh and the one who reached down to raise Lazarus from the dead.  The One who multiplied the fishes and loaves to feed the masses, the One who turned water into wine to provide for a friend, the One who leans down to whisper our name in the darkest hours, the One who calmed the storm(s) and who holds back so much pain from our lives.  The ONE ... how can we doubt His power, His promise?  HE has been faithful time and time again while our hearts ran off after lesser things. 

Will you pray with me for things that only God can do?  Will you look with me, for the blessings in the raindrops and the healing in the tears?  I am tired of settling for the lesser things.  Let's live lives worth telling stories about and pray prayers that only God can receive the credit for!  And I'll even find more treasure in those sleepless nights knowing it is God working in my life.