When the Naysayers Won't Quit: Start With Prayer

As I look back to my last post, I find it interesting that even though I haven't been posting all along (too much life lately) I've still been on that same path. I'm still working on developing consistency with resolution 1, but I've been really working on developing a habit of prayer. This has been inspired by my Study of Nehemiah. I've decided to share it with you here in hopes that you may be encouraged as well.

This will all make a lot more sense if you jump over and read Nehemiah 1 real quick.

Here's my version:

After Babylon came in and took the Israelites captive, Nehemiah found himself as cupbearer to the king. There were some travelers from Judah that came through. Nehemiah couldn't help but ask about home. He was devastated to hear what was left. He was remorseful for the sins of His people and He pleaded with God through fasting and prayer to remember His people and to restore the nation of the Lord, recalling the promise of the Lord. 

Nehemiah knew what he had to do after all this fasting and prayer. It was nuts! He was a servant to the king. But God gave him a plan. Devine strategy… He had to ask the king something. He knew if he was going to be successful, God had to go before him. God had to move on the heart of the king. All of this knowing came from his time allowing God to console his brokenness. He fasted, knowing only God could satisfy his broken heart. He prayed, pleading with God to hear this prayer. "Give me peace, give me hope, show me what I can do to bring about restoration of YOUR people” I'm sure he prayed. 

This is how I can learn from Nehemiah today!

God gave us emotions. He allows us to experience these, because they drive us to action. 

Brokenness, helplessness, neediness, these things force us to the throne of God where we can find true peace. That peace often comes from an action plan, knowing where to go from this point. But sometimes we have to let those emotions swell in and take over so that we can freely give them to the Lord instead of stuffing them under a rug.

Tuesday was not a great day. I got some bad news from work and I was emotional! I went on a 6 mile walk with my husband, hoping that if I got tired enough, I wouldn't be so upset. And it worked! Kinda... it felt fake because those emotions are still peaking out from the rug every so often asking me what I'm going to do with the budget being so short two months in a row. How can I continue to make plans for the future? Why am I calm… I shouldn't be calm in this situation. I don't have a devine strategy. I don't know what I'm going to do. I have an idea, but I don't know how to make it work. But I never really let those emotions in. I never surrendered them to God in devastation with faith only knowing ONLY He can truly fix it. I just stuffed my feelings under the rug and said with a fake smile, it's ok, God will fix it… But I never really told him the problem or asked him to fix it.

What are you stuffing under the rug? Maybe it's time to find some real genuine peace!

A time to pray

I found myself today realizing all the battles I've been struggling, not enough money, not enough time, not enough energy, etc. Have all significantly lessened as my husband has been able to help lighten these burdens for me. Having authorization to work in America obviously helps significantly. And I find myself at ease as he job hunts having full assurance that God is in control and he will have the right job soon. And so I find myself praying less the last few days because I'm not feeling so desperate or spent. Rather then fall into a pit of complacency I feel called to pursue God with a relentless passion. So then I was wandering in the book store for over an hour trying to decide how to purse God relentlessly when I have to driving problem pushing me. All the books seem to be focused on how to be pushed toward God. So I asked for help. Awkwardly. She gave me the book "Hearing God's Voice" by Henry and Richard Blackaby, which I have yet to start. I also walked away with  "21 Most Effective Prayers of the Bible," which is a journal/book. I started that today, more about that later, but it's good so far. My thought there is that I have weakened in prayer in the last few years as I've struggled through understanding what prayer is supposed to look like after having some decidedly unbiblical examples of prayer in my life. Then I thought about fasting, then blew it off. Then thought about it again, then ignored the thought. Finally I thought I'll talk to my husband about it and he'll say no. Well I talked to him about it and he said it sounded like a good idea. So now we're gearing up to Daniel fast start tomorrow. Ironically (God's never really ironic) church tonight was the pastor calling us to a fast. So all in all it's time to grow. It's time to become relentless. It's time to desire God and pursue holiness.

So Day 1 of this prayer journey is about Abraham's servants prayer as he searched for a wife for Isaac. His prayer: Make me successful today. So where do I need to apply this prayer today? I think towards the fast God is clearly calling me to. I struggle to finish fasts strong. I often make excuses and cut it short or change it to make it easier. I know there are great challenges to finishing this fast strong. Doing a Daniel fast while living in a hotel will be difficult, but today I pray, God make me successful.

On a final note, I'm giving up TV and movies while we fast and with that time I'm intending to pick the guitar back up and work on the sermon series God has been leading me towards preparing for the day when I am leading in ministry.

So I guess those are new years resolutions. It wasn't really my intention to make any but I guess it's kinda what they are. I'm excited about all this year holds. I'm excited to see what God is going to do in our lives!!

An aha moment.

So at church today I realized I've been praying all wrong. I've been praying for my way to solve problems instead of asking God to solve the problems. John needs a job. I've been praying for immigration to go through so john can get a job but really what we need is for John to be busy and for there to be enough to pay the bills. So I find I now have a bit more faith and a bit more peace as I pray tonight for God to meet our every need.

Immigration

This waiting game for John's immigration is getting so old. I feel like a broken record praying over and over that today the papers that allow him to get a job will come. It's like we're stuck in this phase of life and EVERYTHING is waiting for him to have a stable job. We're barely making it financially. I'm working 3 jobs and I'm exhausted. I'm scared that I'm going to get into nursing school this summer and June will come and I won't be able to start because he still won't be working. I'm scared we're going to be stuck in this season of life forever. It feels like forever already because he was told originally he'd get his working papers 6-10 weeks after submission... back in May! It's one of those things that we can't even really proactively wait. Johns has looked at jobs over and over but what good does it do without the papers allowing him to apply. We can't afford for him to get his driver's license which would be a helpful step, but until he's working we cant afford the class we can't afford the increase in insurance. It's just so frustrating he's not immigrating from a country that's commonly trying to come to the US. He has no record. He's done everything by the book and yet this process has been so completely complex for no real reason.

As I was praying about all this this morning I told God I'm changing tactics I am going to now be the pesky traveler knocking in the middle of the night for some bread (I might have that story a little off but you get the point) I'm going to ask over and over and over until my prayers are answered. Basically out of desperation. What else am I going to do? What else can I do?