In the interest of publicly announcing my deepest and most
personal dreams and desires, today I give you:
Laughing
It Off: When to stop asking and start praising
I recently started reading “The Circle Maker” by Mark
Batterson. Now, don’t hold it against
the man that he has a last name that looks like a typo version of “Patterson”. :-)
Here’s the book description from Amazon:
According to Pastor Mark Batterson in his book, The Circle
Maker, “Drawing prayer circles around our dreams isn’t just a mechanism whereby
we accomplish great things for God. It’s a mechanism whereby God accomplishes
great things in us.” Do you ever sense that there’s far more to prayer, and to
God’s vision for your life, than what you’re experiencing? It’s time you
learned from the legend of Honi the Circle Maker—a man bold enough to draw a
circle in the sand and not budge from inside it until God answered his prayers
for his people. What impossibly big dream is God calling you to draw a prayer
circle around? Sharing inspiring stories from his own experiences as a circle
maker, Mark Batterson will help you uncover your heart’s deepest desires and
God-given dreams and unleash them through the kind of audacious prayer that God
delights to answer.
I feel the need
for a disclaimer here. I do not subscribe
to the “prosperity gospel” of Joel Osteen.
I don’t believe that God exist solely to make us happy, and that if we
simply ask for it, we can have that sports car we always wanted. Note that Mark says “God accomplishes great
things IN us", not FOR us. I believe that
we exist to bring glory to God and further His kingdom, whether good or bad
things are happening to us. Here’s an excerpt
from an article that I think describes my sentiments very well:
When the heart seeks the Lord, it is satisfied with what it
finds there, and its true desires are realized in Him. But loving and desiring
God is far from natural for us. Therefore,
the first and most important prayers in the life of a Christian are “Make me
love You above all else” and “Make me want what You want” because when we truly
desire God and long to see the Kingdom of God realized in our lives and in the
lives of others, when we are passionate to see His will and His work in this
world, and we ask for the things that bring Him glory and increase our
closeness to Him, He is eager and willing to give us anything we ask for… We
must never doubt that, when we pray for what is in His will, we will receive
it, and that what we receive from Him will always be that which is best.
Alright, back to
the point of the blog post. I have many
hopes and dreams. I hope to one day land
a dream job (I already have a job) in the field of student affairs
and put my degree to even better use; one that works more directly with
students and that I can’t wait to go to every day. I dream of traveling the world. I hope to live somewhere that actually
experiences winter, at least for a couple of years. I dream of being debt-free one day very
soon. But along with all these and more,
God has placed in my heart an overwhelming desire to become a wife and
mother.
Scoff if you
must. Blame it on my southern
heritage. Blame it on pressures from
society on women my age. Blame it on an
underlying need for romantic, male companionship. These are all things I’ve blamed it on
before. I have been on my knees begging
God to take this desire from me if it isn’t His will for me, over and over and
over again. “Make your will my
will. Help me to want what you want for
me, Lord. Give me patience to wait on
Your timing. Give me the faith to trust You with my dreams.” I have been angry over these words; I have sobbed over these prayers. In the most literal sense I could accomplish, I
have poured out my heart to Jesus. I
have hated myself for being preoccupied with what I call “the husband hunt”. Those days that I don’t enjoy see
the value in being single are very hard.
In the Circle
Maker, Batterson talks about when we should stop asking God for something and
start praising Him for it, instead.
There comes a time when we have to recognize that God has answered a
prayer, and then it’s your turn to say thank you. Then it occurred to me: God has already
answered my prayer. I asked so many
times, and that desire never went away; I’m confident it’s because it is part
of His will for me to be a wife and mother someday. I don’t have to obsess over whether my heart
is in rebellion against His will. I
asked, and He replied. Now I know that
it is part of God’s plan for my life that I marry a Godly man and that our marriage
glorifies God in return.
Now, all I have to
do is praise God for what He has already done.
I am praising Him for the amazing man He is currently molding into the
future spiritual leader of my household.
I am praising Him for my future marriage and my future children. I am praising Him for the gifts He is
developing in me that I will one day contribute to my roles as wife and mother
for the betterment of my family and the glory of God.
Since I’ve
grasped this concept, I’m much less preoccupied with when and where I’ll meet “the
one”. I have been much more focused on
finding peace and fulfillment in God. I
feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders! I am so grateful for His promises and for
this amazing revelation that allows me to believe in those promises even more.
In a later post,
I’ll tell you more about the uncomfortable process of God’s answering my
prayers to mold me into a better wife and mother. I truly believe I haven’t found my husband
yet because I’m not ready. I have a lot
to learn about running a household and managing a family. There’s a saying, “Be careful what you wish
for.” FALSE. Be careful what you ask God for. Stay tuned!
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