The other night I asked my husband, "What about all those prayers we pray that are not in the will of God? Like when I pray for something that doesn't happen, or I pray to prevent something that ends up happening. How am I to understand this?"
He began to speak of our daughter when she was a child. She would always ask Daddy to carry her up the hill to the house from the car, even long after she was too big to be carried. Daddy didn't always carry her, but still in asking she was expressing love and dependence on a father whom she knew cared for her above all else and fulfilled her needs as a father. In simply asking she was acknowledging the father role and her relationship to it.
When we ask our Abba Father to carry us we may have to walk up the hill ourselves, but we express our love for Him in asking even for the unreasonable. Our asking is an expression of faith and dependence on Him. That has to warm our Father's heart!
The other day I prayed before rowing that God would not let me fall in the water. That day I had my first fall in the water. It was my birthday, and as my boat folded me into the water as gently as egg whites into batter, my mind was screaming, "But it's my birthday! It's my birthday! No, no no!"
At first I concluded that my prayer was out of harmony with God's will, until I remembered that I'd also prayed for God to build me as a rower. When I fell in the water I had to learn to get back in the boat, no mean feat. My prayers were in conflict with one another, and God in His infinite wisdom chose which was the best prayer to answer.
As soon as I invited Jesus to enter my heart I recognized that He had been knocking at the door of my heart for a long long time. I didn't know what that knocking was until I responded to it, then I realized that the knocking was a warm, familiar old friend. Jesus, Savior, standing like a stranger in the night, out in the rain - as if my window were so important that anyone would want to stand under it - serenading me with his gentle, unperturbed, patient silence, simply waiting for me to be ready.
Lately I have become attuned to a new knocking at the door of my heart, and I know exactly what it is. I recognize in it an invitation from the Holy Spirit to worship. I have become attuned to how I postpone responding to this precious invitation, how I distract myself with competing activities, how I wait for the knocking to settle down and leave me alone, how I check in later and am relieved that the one at the door has finally given up and gone home.
But somehow the knocking is coming into focus, emerging from a fog of vagueness into the forefront of my thoughts. I can talk about it now. It is a phenomenon now, a subject to write about, an issue to bring up in conversation. I am turning to face it, I am walking toward the door. I am turning the knob, I am inviting the Holy Spirit in for a nice leisurely visit. I am putting aside my knitting, switching off the TV and tuning in to what my "guest" has to say. Holy Spirit says, "Worship more!" And in that message I also recognize an answer to prayer.
How many times have I asked the Lord to show me His heart? How many times have I asked the Holy Spirit to lead and guide me, to set my feet in the right direction? How many times have I asked for more faith, a deeper walk? Any number of prayers have come forth from my mouth, and this invitation is the answer. I will grow more faith, walk closer to the Lord, find relief from the stresses, have greater clarity and certainty about God's will for me, if I just spend more time in worship. The reward is there. The answers are there.
Do I have the stamina to stay awake in the garden, to stand vigil with my Lord as He prays? Do I have enough desire to commune with my God to fight off inertia, to overcome my laziness, and go that strange new path with no tools, no computer, no pencil and paper even, no guitar or cell phone, just my heart of worship?
When I encountered the hymn, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, I was very touched by it and added it to my repertoire. But as I examined the words, I found myself troubled to be singing lyrics that confessed to being prone to wander from God.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love;
No Lord, not me! I will never wander! Those can't be the words of one who loves you as I do! I changed the verses around, since the song was too long anyway and I found I could combine this phrase with that one and make a perfectly good reduction that eliminated those lyrics that I didn't like.
Then one day I found myself wandering. I was undone, like a doll whose stuffing and stitching were coming apart. I had a bad week. I experienced chilling faithlessness. I forgot God's promises, His Word and His comfort. I found I hadn't read from the Word of God for so long I was lost in a foreign country. I let doubt, confusion and distress be my master. I couldn't maintain steady worship. As I groped to find my way back to peace and the familiar warmth of the bosom of the Lord, I finally saw myself in those words.
Left to my own devices I will revert to my former ways. I will become a slave to the desires of my flesh. I will descend into isolation and despair. I will worry myself sick. If I am passive, inertia will be the tool of the enemy to bring me to forget, disregard, doubt, neglect, and finally be swallowed up in a numbing sleep.
Christianity is not intuitive, it is not native to our selfish natures. It is not passive. Only by the daily renewal of vows, the constant involvement in spiritual surrender to the precious Lamb of God, the continual discipline of worship, can the Lord overcome the barriors of self and remake us in His own image. For this reason, I sing,
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter, Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
The other night I asked my husband, "What about all those prayers we pray that are not in the will of God? Like when I pray for something that doesn't happen, or I pray to prevent something that ends up happening. How am I to understand this?"
