I was baking bread and had some music playing in the background when a song came on. I don’t know the name or artist or even the title but a line in the song jumped out at me. Be careful what you ask for. Out loud I responded to no one in particular, “That’s for sure!”
Another song followed and a line, “God, give me peace.”
Ha! I thought, be careful what you ask for. Peace.
Because when most people ask Yahweh for something they don’t understand how He likes to work. It’s not like the drive up window where we’ve asked for a burger and fries and they hand it over in a nicely folded bag full of yummy smells. Oh no! It’s more like, we ask for a burger and fries and God smiles and hands us a shovel and tells us to till some ground so we can plant some potatoes and oh, by the way, if we want a burger we need to feed that beef steer and be sure he gets what he needs FIRST! You gotta love a God with a sense of humor and good work ethic.
Be careful what you ask for. Want patience? He’s most likely going to give us some circumstances that will stretch what patience we have to the limit. Why? Because we learn most from those circumstances. We learn more from hard times than we do easy ones. Wisdom is gained not by divine right but by making mistakes and learning from them. Patience is learned by watching our five-year-old tie their shoelaces, slower than molasses, when we’re late to an appointment, and realizing that these moments are going to be gone all too soon and before you know it she is going to be tying her running shoes and running off to college and you’ll look back on the molasses moment with nostalgia. So you learn patience in that moment.
I’ve learned to be very thoughtful when I ask Yahweh for something because He will probably give it to me but not nearly like I think He should. He is interesting like that. He wants me to LEARN and GROW, not just be given something. It’s a great lesson in parenting actually. The things we earn have so much more meaning.
My girl came home from a teen leadership camp a couple of weeks ago. This was her fourth year attending and I asked what was different about this year than the others because she was raving about how great it was this year. She said, “I don’t really know. We did a lot of the same things but I got a lot more out of it this year.” Hmmmm…a minute later I said, “Do you think it had anything to do with the fact that this year you worked and paid for the entire cost yourself including the plane ticket?” I could see she wanted to say no but couldn’t. She admitted yes.
We value what we earn and work for and Yahweh who designed us certainly knows that. Want peace? Get ready to learn peace in spite of trying circumstances. Want to trust more? That’s a toughie. Learning to trust Him regardless of what life is throwing your way. But when we do, a whole new world opens up. It’s like you see life out of new eyes. But we can’t get there by mere words. It’s digging in, on our knees, crying out in pain, saying NO MATTER WHAT Yahweh I am CHOOSING to trust YOU! Even when everything inside of us wants to cave and give up. Even when we’ve realized we aren’t going to get what we desperately asked him to give us. Like when someone close to us dies in spite of us asking Him to heal. Trusting Him no matter what. Knowing that He knows best in ALL circumstances. Trusting that He knows WAY better how things should be. That’s when we get the gift of trusting Him. The words come easy when life is good. It’s when life hurts so badly we can barely breathe that trusting Him becomes real.
How about those Fruit of the Spirit things like kindness, love and gentleness. I ask Yahweh to make me full of His Fruit of the Spirit and I know those things are hard won. Who will I have to be kind to in spite of how they are treating me? How will I need to show love to the one who isn’t so loving back? Or do I really have to be gentle with that woman who is always so harsh to me? Like a pastor I recently listened to said, “It’s easy to love someone who loves you back.” This is why the Bible calls it the narrow path. Because it’s darn hard.
How about when I ask to be closer to Him? That can be a crazy ride getting to that destination. Because close to Him means walking away from everything and everyone else. Like the story in the Bible when the young rich man asked to follow Jesus/Yahshua. Yahshua told the young man to give it all up to follow Him. The young man couldn’t/wouldn’t do that and walked away. To get really close to Yahweh we have to be willing to let everything else go, to be so alone in our trying circumstances, to have no where else to turn but to Him, and in spite of all the odds against us we lean on Him no matter what and trust Him to get us through, whatever that might look like. That’s when we get the gift of a close relationship with the Creator. After the decision – the choice – to give it all up. And to be grateful in spite of what we see in front of us. And to be grateful whatever the outcome. Then.
Like I said, not like going to the drive up.
I still ask for all those fantastic things; wisdom, knowledge, understanding, love, patience, peace, kindness, getting even closer to Him, etc. I just know it’s not going to be a trip to the drive up window to pick up my burger and fries. I’m putting on my farmer clothes to go dig in the dirt and plant my potatoes first.
Simply My Opinion,
Kathe
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