Careful What You Pray For

Early in my Christian walk, I can remember well-meaning Believers saying,  be careful what you pray for, when I prayed for more patience.  That was their light-hearted way of warning  preparing me that when you pray for more patience, the Lord will test your patience through circumstances and He did!  lol.

Careful What You Pray For - A Different Answer

As I've shared in numerous blog posts, I have battled anxiety for my entire life.  But that's okay...  Because the Lord used my anxiety to ultimately draw me to Himself, and to continue to keep me close to Him as I walk on this Pilgrim journey.  To read more about that journey please visit my post The Story God Wrote For Me - Anxiety Saved Me

The Lord has been merciful to me in that even though I still suffer with anxiety, there is an inner calm that wasn't there years before.  This calm might be barely detectable, depending on the circumstance, but nonetheless it is a vast improvement from the type of anxiety I used to suffer with.

As I shared last week in my post, That Moment I Wanted to Cry Uncle, ever since August, I have been revisited by health issues I haven't dealt with in decades!  And some new ones!  At the time I wrote that post, I truly felt I was in the midst of a full-on spiritual attack.

But then the Lord started speaking to my heart through several Streams in the Desert devotions that caused me to reassess the trials I currently find myself walking in...

Let me back up...

One of my biggest fears as a Christian is relinquishing control to the Lord.  I shared about That Moment I Finally Relinquished Control to the Lord here. 

The following is an excerpt from that post to add perspective...

As I began to back out of my driveway, on the way to the doctor, I relinquished all control to the Will of the Lord, and did so without hesitation.  I told Him that whatever the outcome of today's appointment was, I knew that in Christ Jesus, it would all work out in the end, whether high blood pressure, good report or bad report, the Lord God, my Heavenly Father, would not leave me or forsake me.  I would ALWAYS be in His protective care.

But there is something I didn't tell you...

While I was in the middle of writing that particular post, I actually received a phone call from that very doctor with test results that I never in a million years would have expected or even ever worried about.  In fact, I thought I had a better chance of getting hit by lightening!  It was quite upsetting and took me a few weeks to process.  I fretted.  I kicked and screamed.  (Well, I didn't really scream, but I was angry.) 

But why was I fretting or kicking and screaming?  Didn't I tell the Lord that "whatever the outcome of that appointment was, I knew that in Christ Jesus, it would all work out in the end.  Whether good report or bad report...  The Lord God, my Heavenly Father, would not leave me or forsake me.  I would ALWAYS be in His protective care."

Careful what you pray for!  The Lord took me at my word!

Of course I am being facetious when I say careful what you pray for.  I am not at all implying that we shouldn't pray, even in the examples I have given.  The point I am trying to make is that sometimes when we pray, we may be offering more lip service without intentionally doing so, believing in our hearts that we are praying sincerely, but then a different answer comes which exposes our weakness...

They were living to themselves; self with its hopes, and promises and dreams, still had hold of them; but the Lord began to fulfill their prayers. They had asked for contrition, and had surrendered for it to be given them at any cost, and He sent them sorrow; they had asked for purity, and He sent them thrilling anguish; they had asked to be meek, and He had broken their hearts; they had asked to be dead to the world, and He slew all their living hopes; they had asked to be made like unto Him, and He placed them in the furnace, sitting by "as a refiner and purifier of silver," until they should reflect His image; they had asked to lay hold of His cross, and when He had reached it to them it lacerated their hands.

They had asked they knew not what, nor how, but He had taken them at their word, and granted them all their petitions. They were hardly willing to follow Him so far, or to draw so nigh to Him. They had upon them an awe and fear, as Jacob at Bethel, or Eliphaz in the night visions, or as the apostles when they thought that they had seen a spirit, and knew not that it was Jesus. They could almost pray Him to depart from them, or to hide His awfulness. They found it easier to obey than to suffer, to do than to give up, to bear the cross than to hang upon it. But they cannot go back, for they have come too near the unseen cross, and its virtues have pierced too deeply within them. He is fulfilling to them His promise, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me" (John 12:32).

Streams in the Desert, October 17th

Careful What You Pray For - The Refiner's Fire

As I read the above devotion, I started to see that the sufferings I had been enduring, even those unrelated to that doctor's appointment where I relinquished control, were because the Lord took me at my word. He lit the refiner's fire to bring forth the precious silver of patience and the pure gold of increased faith.

When the suffering soul reaches a calm sweet carelessness, when it can inwardly smile at its own suffering, and does not even ask God to deliver it from suffering, then it has wrought its blessed ministry; then patience has its perfect work; then the crucifixion begins to weave itself into a crown.

It is in this state of the perfection of suffering that the Holy Spirit works many marvelous things in our souls. In such a condition, our whole being lies perfectly still under the hand of God; every faculty of the mind and will and heart are at last subdued; a quietness of eternity settles down into the whole being; the tongue grows still, and has but few words to say; it stops asking God questions; it stops crying, "Why hast thou forsaken me ?"

... for, let the circumstances be what they may, it seeks only for God and His will, and it feels assured that God is making everything in the universe, good or bad, past or present, work together for its good.

Oh, the blessedness of being absolutely conquered! of losing our own strength, and wisdom, and plans, and desires, and being where every atom of our nature is like placid Galilee under the omnipotent feet of our Jesus.
–Soul Food   

The great thing is to suffer without being. discouraged.
--Fenelon

 Streams in the Desert, September 10th

In total transparency, this suffering soul has not reached a calm, sweet carefree attitude that can inwardly smile at it's own suffering.  I am still discouraged in my suffering and still pray for deliverance.

But I am leaning and learning...

Leaning on the Lord and learning in the refiner's fire...

Careful What You Pray For - Trust without Borders

A few weeks ago, my husband discovered that a pond in our state had been stocked with trout. Not just any old trout, but brood stock brown trout with an average weight of 4 to 6 lbs.

The trout are raised in controlled environments and then released into fresh water ponds.   This particular pond, which is relatively small, as far as bodies of water go, was stocked with 400 of these large brown trout!

My husband and I loaded up the canoe and headed on down to Carbuncle Pond.  We didn't catch any of these monster fish because we weren't using the type of bait that they were accustomed to in the hatchery - powerbait.  We did get to see them jumping all around us, though, which was pretty neat actually, as they made quite a splash.

We found out a few days later that at least 100 of the 400 brown trout in Carbuncle Pond died; they assume it was because of the unseasonably warm weather as trout do best in deeper, cold water.   Those that died probably stayed in the shallower water where they were closer to people fishing from shore who were using their favorite - Powerbait.  If they didn't meet their demise due to the warmer water, they surely would on the end of a hook!

I realized over these past four months, I am no different than those fat brown trout that died.   I want to hang out in the warm shallow water and be spoon fed ease, to my Spiritual demise.

Fearfulness keeps me from swimming into the cold, unknown deep...

But there my Savior waits for me...

 O Lord, you have searched me and known me!

You know when I sit down and when I rise up;

    you discern my thoughts from afar.

You search out my path and my lying down

    and are acquainted with all my ways.

 Even before a word is on my tongue,

    behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.

You hem me in, behind and before,

    and lay your hand upon me.

 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;

    it is high; I cannot attain it.

Where shall I go from your Spirit?

    Or where shall I flee from your presence?

 If I ascend to heaven, you are there!

    If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!

If I take the wings of the morning

    and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

 even there your hand shall lead me,

    and your right hand shall hold me.

 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,

    and the light about me be night,”

 even the darkness is not dark to you;

    the night is bright as the day,

    for darkness is as light with you.

Psalm 139:1-12

When a person is drowning, they are so busy kicking and flailing, they are not aware of their rescuer's arms trying to grab hold of them.

That was me...

Until I slowly stopped kicking and screaming did I hear the Lord speaking to me...  through prayer, devotions, blog posts, and dear friends.  All speaking the same Truth -  The Lord sees me, He is always with me,  He strengthens me, and His grace is ALWAYS sufficient for me.

Times of affliction can actually be times of rejoicing because we know the Lord is bringing about new growth.   We are receiving a promotion of sorts to the next level of faith and communion with Him, ultimately preparing us for that great day when we will meet Jesus face to face where there will be no more sickness and no more tears.

The following Bible verse was at the end of a dear, sweet friend's precious email to me this morning.  As you can see, the Lord is continuing to minister to me...   

Therefore we do  not lose heart.  

Even though our outward man is perishing, 

yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. 

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, 

is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

2 Corinthians 4:16-17

In the meantime, I will soak up His Love and Grace while He teaches me...

For more posts about prayer please checkout the following by clicking the titles:

The Power of Thanksgiving

Four Powerful Attitudes in Prayer that Yield Results

Boomerang Prayers

Prayer and a Piano

The Assurance of Things Unseen

Dare to Ask

May we pray without fear and...

if it is the Lord's will to bring about a difficult answer, may we receive it with the Grace that grows faith and the Love that brings peace.

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