FAITHFUL FRIDAY

I have learned that prayer does not change some things, not because God does not care but because He has a purpose for the pain, there is a reason for the madness. We may not understand it, we don’t have to. We just have to trust His process and survive the storm. Now that we can pray for and know that not only will He give us strength to survive but we will come out stronger and better. When we pray, we should make our request known to God, (not just in the big things but all of the small details, as well) but we should be prepared and accepting that the way God chooses to respond is His right and privilege. He is not our puppet to boss about as we please; or our servant to do our bidding. It is the other way around and the sooner we recognize and adjust accordingly, the less heartache we will bring upon ourselves in this life.  Even though we ask, God will not always give us insight into what is happening to us. He may not give us His perspective to view the difficulties of our plight. Scripture says we are to walk by faith and not by sight and that we are to simply trust and obey. Sometimes I do believe our Father God will withhold things from us with the purpose of growing our faith, trust and obedience. As I look over my life there were things I prayed for and God was right on time. There were things I did not pray for, and the blessings kept flowing. Thank you God! Then there were the storms, the worst just in 2016. After I realized I had done all I could, I cried and prayed to God. Nothing. (First lesson, I should have went to him first, could have saved myself a lot of tears and pain). I cried and prayed some more. Nothing. I was praying for God to stop the storm. And things kept getting worse. Finally I said, “Ok God, I am not a bad person, I try to do what is good and right. Why have you forgotten about me, don’t you see I can’t take anymore?”  “Please help me Lord because I am about to lose my mind.”  “I need you to help me through this.” “I cannot do this by myself.” And wow, there He was, comforting me, strengthening me, giving me a peace even though the storm was still raging. Do you get it? Once I stopped asking God to remove something that I now understand was there to take me to another level, and started praying for Him to help me get through it, things changed. Not the situation, but the way I was handling the situation. We know that prayer can change things, but sometimes prayer changes us and then we change things. God has established things so that prayer, on the basis of redemption, changes the way a person looks at things. Prayer is not always a matter of changing things externally, but one of working miracles in a person’s inner nature. With God’s help I passed the test. How do I know? Because I am here. Stronger, better and wiser. Wiser because the next time a storm comes, and it will, I will know it’s one of two things; God is preparing me for His purpose or the devil is trying to block something big God has for me! Either way, don’t you agree that is enough for us to hang in there and know we can get through all things through God who strengthens us? Much Love….