February 14, 2012
The In-Basket
Recently a friend shared her frustration about not having a specific
prayer answered. Feeling both dejected and rejected, she questioned whether or
not God was even hearing her prayers. I couldn’t help but think of Zechariah
and Elizabeth who were well along in years and still childless. As a priest
Zechariah no doubt pounded the doors of heaven for years with his request to
have an heir. One day an angel appeared to him and said, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard.” (Luke
1:13 NIV) God’s timing is perfect and it gives me pause to think that my prayer
request may be sitting in God’s in-basket just waiting for the right time.
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----I sometimes wonder what business my prayer really has in God’s in-basket. I know He gave life to me and that He loves me and is concerned about my well being and joy and even trivial happiness, too, at times. But in measuring my life and its events for meaning, and from that meaning projecting what next should come, have I really considered His life and its events for meaning? Is His world supposed to shape around mine? I haven’t quite figured a way to answer “yes” to that question. So I still go along trying to see all the ways my life must be meant to shape around His, and how even though I have wants I might fully consider to be needs, they may actually be unacceptable for the way my life needs to fit His.
-----So I pray for the things I think are needed as I best perceive the world. I pray mostly for provision and safety and wisdom. Then I figure God has made me a big enough boy to make my own entertainment and happiness within His character. Yet I pray for His guidance into joy, because it is so much more important than happiness and entertainment. But I always keep the frame of mind that what God is doing in this world to culminate the plan He set before the foundation of the earth may require my being slowly ground in the jaws of death like a gnat between fingers. And if that be the case, then all the better I should enjoy it, for life is not an endless string of pearls and diamonds and gold nuggets. For the duration of this place there are rocks mixed into the string before it becomes that endless string. Still, every event of it adds meaning to His communication. I want to become whatever He needs for the next syllable He speaks with my life, rock or diamond. So an unanswered prayer does not frighten me. In fact, it comforts me. It shows me that God is yet putting things together the way He needs them, that He has not resigned Himself to my wisdom, Thank God! Otherwise we would all be in for a world of hurt!
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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