You would
think I’d know this by now, but prayer sometimes works in funny ways. I have a
short story about such an occurrence:
Earlier this
year, I began my job search since I don’t want to miss my daughter Caeli
growing up with me staying on the graveyard shift and never getting to play
with her daddy. During the hunt, I started praying for a little bit more money
to ease some of our financial burdens, some self-inflicted (baby’s first
Christmas) and others were seasonal, such as the January gas bill. I applied –
and somehow – got to interview for two lateral positions within the company.
Although I felt like both meetings were productive, I was not hired for either
role; instead, my boss gave me a bit of a raise presumably to stay in my
current place.
Fast forward
four months to the “lil’ mo’ money” part.
My co-worker
became seriously ill and has missed the past month of work meaning that someone
had to step in to fill his spot.
Guess who
that fill-in person was? Me.
At this
posting I have worked 31 of the past 34 nights with the first 21 nights toiled
consecutively. My new schedule began Monday morning, and while it is marginally
better than working to live, I still have to punch the clock for six nights on
with one night off each week. The overtime money is much needed and greatly
appreciated to catch up on our bills along with building up some savings, but
where I failed in this series of prayers was I had not been specific enough in
my requests. Let me make myself VERY
CLEAR that this is not prosperity gospel! What I was asking for (the money
alone) should have been for the
opportunity with the money and
better (read: salaried, Monday through Friday, 8-4 around $40K annually and
good health insurance) hours for a decent quality of life for my family and to
continue effective ministry to magnify the name of Jesus.
Lesson
learned: Unspecified prayers are
answered sometimes in the way we want them to be, even if they aren’t exactly
how we envision God’s fulfillment.
We all know
I would rather be a paid blogger these days even as the freelance technical
writer experience winds down to a close, but perhaps something way better is
coming over the horizon. Is having a barbecue trailer one of those next moves?
When we
pray, it is a conversation between us and God. We don’t have to use all of the
fancy titles passed down from one generation to the next to address Him; He
responds to us directly in three ways:
1. Yes
2. No
3. Hold up, I’ve got something better
for you
Of course,
yes means yes. But do we really want everything to be a “yes”?
Surely Our
Father is not a magic genie who grants us everything we want when we want it.
Remember when we were kids in elementary school when the teacher had us do a
math problem on the blackboard? Those of you who went to Ida Burns certainly
did, and even if we didn’t know the answer, we marched up to the chalkboard and
scratched up something. In Mrs. Jones’s fourth grade class, feigning ignorance
over division with remainders sometimes cost us recess – ask me about that one.
It was just hard and I didn’t get it at the time. I tried to pray my way out of
going up one afternoon and still had to solve the problem which surprisingly, I
got right! Had He let the 3:30 dismissal bell ring as she was getting around to
calling upon me, then I may not have had an appreciation of those prayers
granted to me and essentially treated Him like the benevolent older neighbor
who let us have anything we wanted in the candy store.
In Acts 12:1-17,
we are aware of not only the Apostle James’s death by the hand of Herod but
also Peter’s imprisonment and subsequent escape. Peter was to stay shackled in
his cell until after Easter when he would be brought in front of the people and
publicly executed. During his stay, the church was deeply vigilant in their
prayers for his freedom; the night before his planned demise, an angel awakened
him, told him to get dressed and follow him. Peter complied, and once he made
it out of the city, the angel departed from him and left the Apostle
dumbfounded. Similar to our own instincts, he had no reaction to the instant he
was brought out of his storm until he thought about it for a while. Then he walked over to Mary’s house to
both visit with the praying members and show them how God satisfied their
prayer requests.
What if God
tells me no?
Initially we
tend to get upset when we are denied what we want – or think we want. For
example, I’ll talk about a pair of Nike Air Jordan basketball sneakers I really
wanted in sixth grade. I wanted them so badly the shoes became a bit of an art
class project one Saturday morning! As the story goes, my parents’ washer quit
working and we got to make a rare trip to the laundromat one Saturday morning.
My art teacher had given this assignment of shadowing in black-and-white due
the following Tuesday, and guess what happened to be around the corner from the
laundromat? The shoe store! It was one of two retailers that carried the Air
Jordan brand in town, and this one had the exact style I wanted. Sure enough, I
marched in the store with my art pad, kid brother, and two pencils and asked
the store clerk to see a pair once I explained the gist of this project. After
a bit of coaxing, she went to the back and returned with a size 9 pair. Once I
got started drawing the sneakers, people came in and out to view my progress as
they shopped for baseball equipment for the upcoming season. Unbeknownst to me,
the high school varsity and junior high teams received all of their equipment
from this store – this is life before Eastbay – and as I crafted what was then
my greatest piece of artwork, head and assistant coaches stopped by for brief
moments of observation and chit-chat. Two hours later, I was finished with the
project, thanked the clerk, and was on my way out the door. My parents noticed
the meticulous effort I had put forth and inquired if that was the shoe I wanted.
Absolutely, I exclaimed. All I had to do was keep straight A’s for the next
quarter.
 |
| Shoe of my childhood dreams until I finally owned a pair |
Did I get
the shoes?
No.
I held my
bargain and remained on the “A” honor roll. Unfortunately, life got in the way
and I settled for a cheap pair of L.A. Gear walking shoes to finish the school
year.
I did
finally own a pair of the Air Jordan V shoes – seventeen years later – and it
didn’t take long to understand why the poorly made shoe was not a good idea at $125
in 1990 alone the $200+ people shelled out at Foot Locker or Champs in 2007. I
sadly found out after draining a three-pointer at the McGee Center back home during
a Saturday morning pickup game when the heel separated from the rest of the
shoe.
I swear I
about to mess around and get me a triple-double!
In James
4:3, God defends His denial of prayer requests succulently: You didn’t come correct. You’re doing this to
fulfill your self-serving desires, so I have to tell you nope. It would be one
thing if the requests were those that promote the Kingdom instead of our little
fiefdoms, but we are so narcissistic that even when our brothers are dying for
the faith, we cannot see anything beyond the tips of our noses!
Matter of
fact, He waves the Mutombo finger toward us when we get rejected at the
proverbial rim. Not in my house!
You won’t
believe this one, but even Jesus was told no by God. Reference Matthew 20:21-23
for the conversation He held with Zebedee’s ole lady.
What happens
when God tell me to hold up? Is it like when Paul Wall told Kanye West to pump the brakes and drive slow?
When God
says hold up, it usually is because He has something better for us. Sometimes
He’s keeping us out of certain trouble such as jail time, negative dings on our
credit reports, whoopings both physical and spiritual, strained relationships,
troubled marriages, or tarnishing our family names by engaging in untoward
conduct.
Within our
prayer closets hang a certain confidence that we strut around in after leaving
our prayers and lamentations in the hamper due to knowing that God hears our
every petition we make. Because we know He hears us, we know that our prayers
are being heard. 1 John 5:14-15 illustrate our transformation from meek to full
of “swagu” (the Holy Spirit) and ready for whatever comes our way. We may not get
our answers immediately – or in what we consider a long time, but the solution
that God presents us is always the best one.
Furthermore,
waiting on God teaches us patience; sometimes, we only require a little and in
other instances, we could use the virtue in spades. A major example of
developing patience is driving in rush hour traffic: In the ebbs and flows of stop-and-go
interstate traffic, learning to hold up before flipping the bird at the
Bro-dozer owner who just cut you off doing 85 on the freeway can serve you
greatly down the road – and today, it could very save a ticket or accident.
I waited patiently for
the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. – Psalm 40:1
Want proof
that God works wonders when He says hold up? Look at David’s life. When the
underdog defeated Goliath, it was only after his brothers all went to battle
against the Philistine and lost assuring the Israelites their king was coming
from humble beginnings and an all-around great dude. During most of his life,
the temple was built in Jerusalem and the people grew in stature; even when he
lusted after Beersheba and had her husband killed in war, David continually
maintained a strong prayer relationship with God.
Whoops, that
wasn’t such a short story as I originally anticipated.
Trust me
when I say I should know that prayer works in funny ways.
