At prayer and worship last Wednesday i felt so moved and close to God that I prayed that my friend sitting next to me would be hit with the holy spirit like a tsunami. I thought if ever God would answer my prayer it would be now, and it would be this.
So I peeked at him every now and then expecting to see him weeping or kneeling, totally overcome with praise.
But nothing happened.
My faith started spiraling down again after that moment. Was there no one listening to my request? Doesn’t he say to ask him? and to have faith? And that if we remain in him whatever we ask will be given us? Well it wasn’t. . .
at least not yet.
In a novel I wrote last November i depicted prayers like seeds that we plant. We must pour into them with faith that they will grow, and in their own time, even sometimes far after we have given up on them, they will sprout up and bear fruit.
The same friend who i prayed for that night taught me something a month or so ago. He said, part of our jobs as men is to carry our history. We must remember what God has done for us.
So in my doubt I asked myself, what prayer HAS God answered for me?
A couple years ago my cousin started a downward spiral of his own. If doubt is my little demon, drugs is what pulled him down. Way down. He was addicted to Heroin living on the streets. I prayed hard and heavy for him. I watered that prayer consistently for months and months. Until I became weak and pretty much gave up.
He almost died in the hospital a couple months ago. It looked like total defeat. But then. . .
his liver and kidney unexpectedly started working again. Now he has been clean for something like 80 days.
I guess i have to remember that God hears my prayers. And He was working his own plan during church in my friend’s heart. It is immature of me to expect that my friend would be touched in the way that i am during praise– that he would be touched in my timing, instead of God’s timing. I even presumed that my friend wanted to be touched. Maybe his free will is not in a posture to let God touch him. . .
at least not yet.
And if I were praying with the faith that is so easily broken in the five minutes of not seeing results, it is probably me that has the wrong posture before God.
I’m sorry, Yeshua. I have faith that the story you write is better than the one i would. But I confess that my doubt is sometimes stronger. But i thank you for this doubt, because through it, I am humbled, and remember how you have answered some of the requests most important to me, in your timing. to bow before you again.
Amen.
Raw Spoon
