Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If he prayed for courage, does God give him courage, or does he give him opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other?
A conversation between God and Joan in the movie Evan Almighty. Came as a timely reminder to me - Let me ask you something, are you always asking God for answers to certain things in life, yet things still remain unchanging?
We often say that we need to start praying, we need to love others, we need to forgive, we need to endure sufferings because Jesus too endured sufferings. But despite knowing all these, we do not seem to love praying, we still look at others' shortcomings, we still cannot forget the feeling of being wronged, we still feel painful in trials and hope it ends just there.
I thought, perhaps like me, you could also be blinded by the things we see, missing the God who is working faithfully at the background. When things do not change, when we do not become more joyful and continue to lose grace in all aspects of our lives, could we also have overlooked the opportunities God is giving us right now - the opportunity to truly discover His leading in our lives? The plans that prosper us and not to harm us, plans to give us hope and a future.
And I realize God is asking me something today.
If I pray to be able to pray deeper, does God give me more prayers or opportunity where I am left with nothing but to draw strength from Him through deep prayers?
If me, God's dear child pray to be able to love, does God give me love, or does He give me the opportunities to experience His love and open my eyes to see how others also need God's love that flows through me?
If I pray to be able to forgive, does God take away the "Wronged" moments in my life, or does He give me the opportunities to experience how He's always by my side and be my judge? I, being the sinner of all sinners, is greatly chosen by God in His sovereign grace and therefore I'm no longer condemned; all I need is to live before God and be accountable to Him as I have been justified through faith and have gained access into His grace in which I now stand. As much as I've been forgiven, others also need His sovereign grace and be forgiven too. God is giving me the opportunity to experience the power of His sovereign grace indeed - whoever is forgiven little loves little, whoever is forgiven much loves much.
If I pray to be able to endure sufferings, does God discount us on our sufferings or does He give us the opportunities to go through suffering because it produces perseverance, character and hope in us?
If things remain unchanged, why don't we change our prayers?
And I realised that the blind spot in many of our lives comes from our failure in inscribing the truth of we are children greatly loved by God in our hearts. If we had, we will see things from a perspective of being loved and able to see the God who is always standing by our sides all these while, working mightily to complete the good works He has started in us.
If we pray to know more God's word, God being who He is, will He not also let us experience how infinite and transcending His word is, so that we truly know that He indeed is our Lord, the Father Almighty?
May our prayers change to be in sync with God's heartbeat today :)
