Great Expectations Redux
August 2, 2012
Today’s blog will be part reflection, part confession, part prayer request and quite frankly will be a peek into a very personal part of my (Cammy’s) world. See, I’ve been journaling my thoughts and prayers for years. Never did I think anyone would read what I was writing. I certainly didn’t imagine books would bear my name or a weekly blog would exist where I try to encourage people I don’t even know! Once these blogs are posted, they become sort of a “public record” of my spiritual progress. The problem with that is I have to remember to live by what I have written and sometimes I find it hard to “do what I say”!
Case in point -several weeks ago I wrote a blog about expecting great things from God. If you missed it, you can see it here: http://wrdsofworth.wordpress.com/2012/03/15/great-expectations/
For a while I actually did exactly what I suggested! I expected and saw “great things” from God. But then I got busy and distracted (Martha, Martha) and though I could still recognize good things, I became rather consumed with lesser things. The result? I became what I call “spiritually grumpy”. Sigh…
What follows here is an excerpt from my journal (this is the personal part and appears exactly as I wrote it) when God grew tired of my grumpiness and showed me the way back to “great expectations”. It all started with simply opening my Bible and seeing a verse I had marked in Psalms:
“Oh good grief! Why in the world do I keep telling people to mark in their Bibles? What a rotten idea! Because when you mark a passage, you eyes will automatically travel there and you might be confronted with an itchy truth like this one in Psalm 5:3. Oh the first part it rolls along just fine: “In the morning, O Lord, you will hear my voice.” Good, good, good. Then I had to read the second part of the verse: “In the morning, I will order my prayer to you and eagerly watch.”
The first thing I noticed was that I had circled the word “and”. So it’s not enough to pray, I must and pray AND watch – EAGERLY watch, like I’m expecting something. (At this point God was not so gently nudging my memory toward the blog I had written earlier) But glancing over to the side of the page, I see that the word “prayers” in that verse actually means sacrifices.
NO! NO! NO! (I actually write just like this in my journal)
Can’t I just organize a few beggy pathetic prayers centered on me to remind God of my situation and how my world isn’t exactly like I would like it right now?
I guess not for that wouldn’t be a sacrifice. Sacrifice means “the giving up of something valued for the sake of something else”. And apparently I am to sacrifice my will (again) and eagerly watch. I must trust Him to take my pitiful offering – held tightly with clenched fist sometimes – and do great things FOR His name’s sake.
Forgive me, Lord, for being selfish again…”
There you have it – the real me, the far from perfect me. But I’m growing and changing and learning, sometimes painfully, what it means to seek God first.
Now, the prayer request part: Sheryl and I are leaving on trip to a far away land TODAY and we truly expect “Great Things” to happen. Would you join us in prayer as we go? Check back here in a couple of weeks and we will give you all the details! Thanks so much!