The prayer I can’t pray (and the one I must)

Or it was difficult, for this girl, at least, for a very long time.  But I’m learning.  Thank God, I’m learning.

If you’ve been reading the blog for any length of time, you know that the last 14 to 16 months have been a period of extended trial and testing, a season of waiting on Him.  And yet it’s been right here in the desert of unpleasant circumstances and discomfort that I have heard His voice so very clearly, and the desert, as I’ve told you, has blossomed.

For days and weeks and months I’d been calling out, asking for deliverance.  For days and weeks and months, He’d given me promise upon promise of provision and care and blessing.  To those, I clung.  And waited and called.

Today, I wait still.  Nothing has changed.  My outward circumstances remain the same (though somewhat easier than before).  Nothing is different in my daily demands and routines.  Deliverance, I am certain, is coming, but the Lord tarries yet.

What has changed is the way I’m led to pray.  Where before I would cry multiple times a day, “Lord, deliver me from…” now I sense His staying hand. 

“No.”  I hear His voice. 

“Don’t ask Me for deliverance anymore.  I want you to thank Mefor the deliverance that is coming.”

Ooohhhh.  So that’s the next step?  That’s how You want me to show I believe?  This would please you, Jesus?  A faith that celebrates, even now in the midst of the same-same daily grind?  Then, yes! 

“Yes!” to praying gratitude before I see the answer. 

“Yes!” to showing I believe by grasping the promise with both hands, hanging tight.

“Yes!” to dropping the last remnants of self-pity and doubt like yesterday’s dirty clothes.

“Yes!”  Because that’s the heart He loves.

Thank You, sweet Jesus, for the deliverance that will come…

“For He has delivered me from all my troubles.” – Psalm 54:7