Prayers

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I saw a girl in church the other day wearing a shirt that said "Pray First". It struck me that those were two powerful little words. Two words that don't always come to our minds to do. We often leave it to our own devices and think that we have the answers for that moment in time. He has told us to seek him first, but do we always do that? Usually we drift, wondering when and if we should seek him.

Do you realize that those two words are really a command. Pray first, before you make that decision, before you leave your marriage, before you make that leap. Pray first. It is not optional, it is not a maybe, or I will get around to it. It means now. Many, many times throughout scripture God commands us to first seek him, pray and seek him. Seek His answers and His guidance.

While this is easy for me to say, the real reason I am writing this is not to lecture you but to remind myself. Because for most of my life I thought God could not be bothered. I mean really, think of all He has on His plate. Why should I bother Him with my small problems. For who was I to ask of him minor things. And was not most of what I wanted or needed in my life minor? Wasn't that decision that I had to make just as easily made on my own? Could I not figure out what to do with my own money, my own time, my own future? There is a problem in that last sentence. Can you find it? It appears three times, it is the word "my". For nothing is really ours, it is not my money, it is not my time, and it certainly is not my future. God owns it all and that is why we need to consult him for every decision. He needs to have a say in it. He wants to have a say in it.

In a previous post I talked about my struggle to be obedient and listen to what God was telling me to do with my life. It took me some time to really become obedient and most of all to know and recognize when He was talking to me. I made a promise to Him to be more obedient. I started by simply listening, and following through with what I heard. There were things He wanted me to do that were out of my comfort zone, that pushed the limits of my boundaries. And made me in the end a better person. All of this growth was because I listened. I stopped making excuses, I stopped wasting time, and I opened my heart. And so in the process of being obedient I learned from God that He cares about the little things in our life. Really, He does. He cares about where we should take our car to be fixed, what daycare your kids should go to and how you should spend your tax refund money. In all things He cares and wants us to seek him first.

So I started doing this in my business, before I made any choice I would wait and pray first. Nothing was made on my own accord, every decision was God's. It was all in His hands. Sometimes I would not get an answer, and I knew that the timing was not right for that particular thing. But some wonderful things started to happen. I began to feel an overwhelming peace. A peace I had never before known with any business. People would ask me if I was not worried about this or about that, I could calmly and truthfully answer "nope, God's got it covered." Because I knew in my heart that I had sought His counsel, and His counsel will never fail us. Also with that peace I lost the concern for money, not that I was making so much I no longer had to worry, loss of concern. It was more of knowledge that God is in control, I have given Him the reins in this business. If He sees fit to make it prosperous, I will simply tithe more. Sure I still scrap by with my bills, sure our cars break down and we wonder how we will make the mortgage each month. But it is different instead of an overwhelming sense of dread and fear, I feel a simple enveloping comfort. The warmth and shield of God's almighty hands covering me like an old comfortable quilt.

It is easy to seek God when our world has fallen apart. When we have reached our lowest and darkest moments. Those times when we feel as though our very self is lost. We fall to our knees and cry out to him. The tears roll down our faces and our hearts long to be loved by Him. To be answered by Him. Simply for Him to take us in His arms and make all of our pain and fears away. Let me tell you those are the easy times, the hard times are asking him for the everyday trials. Those small things that eat at us, and nag at us. Those little things that slowly become the big things without our even knowing it. And before long they consume us, and then once more we find ourselves on our knees and crying out. When we should have asked God long ago to help with that small thing. That small problem, that was in the beginning, so small that we felt God need not be bothered.

So go ahead bother Him, He likes it. Trust me, He does!

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