Hanging on a Prayer

The bible calls us to boldly approach the throne of grace. We are to be confident and bold when we come before the Lord with our prayers. I recall something that our Campus Pastor at Uni used to say, that we should always be mindful of what we pray, and we should not be surprised when God starts doing something in response to those prayers. Often when we pray we already have a pre-conceived idea of how we want the situation to turn out, how we expect God to respond; how the blessing should be packaged or even how long we think the trial and pressure should last. We often forget that God is sovereign and what he desires more for and of us as His children, is often much bigger and better than we can imagine; just the road to getting there may not always what we have hoped for or envisioned.

I was paging through my prayer journal and I came across a prayer that I prayed earlier this year, I write my prayers down so that when I see the answered prayers I can go back to the point of reference and really see just how much God has done for me. On this particular occasion I was praying for my work situation and my prayer went something like this:
“Father I commit this new year to you... Teach me to take the authority you have given me to overcome strife, financial challenges so that you may establish your vision for my workplace. Help me to step into my calling in that place; to be a witness and minister of your gospel through my deeds, my dealings, my words, and my actions.  Gird me with more strength of character; more insight and discernment; more peace. Teach me to do battle on my knees; both corporately and privately. Anchor me in your word; may it become my compass and my map. Teach me to hide it in my heart; to eat from it and be filled. Teach me to pray for others, standing in the gap for them... “
 Even as I type this I am thinking, “WOW, how hectic! What was I thinking?” hehehehehehehhehe

I am sharing this because in the past 3 or so months I have been seeing “flames” on the work front! (Kuona moto) It seems to be one battle after the other, never letting up. The challenges keep rolling into one another, seemingly like a snowball that keeps gathering momentum. Many times I have thought “Lord when will this all end? When will I feel like a can breathe?” It’s been a hectic time. Interestingly today as I have been meditating and praying about my life, I was reminded of my January prayer. It’s amazing that as I read it now that everything that I prayed is what‘s going on in my life right now in terms of spiritual growth (the underlined bits). It’s struck me that we never actually know HOW God is going to bring about His purpose in our lives. What He requires is that we’re open to the process. If someone had said to me “Nyasha; in-order for  you  to have a more established faith, a deeper and enriched prayer life; and greater awareness of His presence in your everyday life in 2012; you will need to walk the hectic path that you are currently on”  I would have told them they were crazy! Surely the path to spiritual growth cannot be that difficult? Yet, it is as it is.

I realised that in order for me to become the person that I desire to be, strong and anchored in the word, whose faith is resolute; then I MUST accept that this season right now is the trench in which my battles are being fought. We are living in extremely challenging times. Situations and circumstances can be overwhelming, scary, frustrating, and discouraging. Drama; drama and even more DRAMA! However God has encouraged us that “the righteous shall live by faith”, BUT our faith does need to be proved. I am comforted that God is answering my prayer in a very BIG way (although at times painful). This is the very road that I must walk, these steps have been ordered and I must trust that God being the author and finisher of my faith, will bring it all full circle, and as James 1 says, I will be able to say that I am “mature, lacking in nothing”.  Once we have had the courage to pray bold courageous prayers that will bring inward change into our lives, God then calls us to persevere; to not try and short-circuit His process, because at the end of it all, we will be better people for it (James 1:2 – 5).  I shared a few weeks back that Faith makes things possible, and not necessarily easy, and boy have i seen that in recent weeks. As tough as it is some days, we need to hold on or just hang in there, all the while encouraging ourselves through the word.

Sometimes the night may seem very long, but what we know for sure is that dawn will break and the sun rise.