Blessings

For Charlotte's funeral, I picked the song "Blessings" by Laura Story to be sung by our pastor's wife.  For a couple weeks before we lost Charlotte, I had been hearing it on the radio a lot.  Now that I think about it, it was just another way God was preparing me for what was to happen in our family.  After we lost Charlotte, I knew I wanted my pastor's wife to sing "Blessings" and "Give Me Faith."  About a year earlier, she had sung "Blessings" in church with her daughter.  When I called her to ask if she would sing, I couldn't remember the name of the song.  I was like "the one you sang about a year ago and it has the word tears or something in it."  She knew immediately and she said yes!  

When I first picked "Blessings," I picked it because of the chorus...

Cause what if Your Blessings come through raindrops
What if your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You're near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

The Lord knew I had shed many, many tears and I needed to feel Him near.  I needed to feel that even in this just maybe it was His mercies disguised in pain.

As time went on the days and weeks after her funeral.  I would play the song and it took on a completely different meaning for me.  One day I heard it as I was driving home from Costco and just began merging onto the highway and I began to weep.  Not so good when you are accelerating up to 70 mph.  The verses are what made me weep.

We pray for blessings
We pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
All the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things

I wept out of conviction.  I'm guilty.  I pray those things.  I pray His blessings on myself and over my family.   I pray protection for my kids while they sleep.  I pray for God to take the hard things out of my life.  Don't get me wrong.  I don't believe it is wrong to ask God for these things.  But sometimes I pray selfishly, for God to make my life easy and comfortable rather than praying for his will.  This is where my weeping stemmed from.  How dare I think that I should know how my life should be or end up, that it should be problem and pain free.  As the song says, its about His love for us.  This love that "loves us too much to give us lesser things."  The part that really brought me to my knees in repentance is...

We pray for wisdom
Your voice to hear
And we cry in anger when cannot feel You near
We doubt your goodness, we doubt Your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough
All the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we'd have faith to believe

Ugh!  Do I believe Him in His goodness as I say that I do?  Do I believe He is who He says He is in His Word?  Or do I throw it back in His face and say, "You're not with me because I don't feel you,  because my circumstances are tough and because they don't seem to be getting better"?   What if each and every day He is giving me His mercies?  Be it the hard days or the easy ones.

For me, His mercies in disguise in this time of mourning are knowing Him more for who He is.  I love the line toward the end of the song that says, "what if my greatest disappointments or the aching of this life, is a revealing of a greater thirst this world can't satisfy."  That's it!  That is exactly what He has taught me through this struggle.  I long for Him!  In this world I'm gonna have trials, but it makes me long for Him and Heaven all the more.

For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.  Philipians 1:21

This song has changed my prayer life.  I still get caught up in the "all about me prayers," but "Blessings" has made me think twice.  I want my prayers and my life to be "all about Him and His glory."  I have to believe He knows the best way to bring Himself glory whether it be through pain or "blessings."  

 

On Seeking God

Recently, Steve and I seem to have quite a few things we are seeking God for answers and direction in. During this time we have been more diligent than ever in praying and fasting for God to give us wisdom and for him to reveal his will for us. And, yet we still wait.

Towards the end of last week, I found myself getting frustrated that I haven't been hearing God give us any answers. I felt like, "Come on God, you know we've been seeking you and your will. You know our hearts and that we want to do and be a part of your plan and yet you remain silent."

I took some time on Sunday and again on Monday afternoon to pray, journal and read the scriptures. Now that I reflect back on those times, I believe that God has spoken to me. He was telling me that the answers to all of my questions for him are very small in the big picture that he has for me/us and that if he answered even one of my prayers, then I would possibly cease to seek him.

Steve and I were discussing this just this evening. Yes, we do have things we desire answers for. But maybe, just maybe God is remaining silent so that we will seek him and not give up in seeking him. One of the scriptures I read yesterday is Matthew 6:33-34...

"But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow..."

In these verses, I found what we believe is God's will for us right now. That is to seek FIRST him, his kingdom and his righteousness. As we do these with perseverance without giving up, fixing our eyes on Jesus, he will answer us in his time. He knows our hearts and the very best way to reveal his will to us. He knows when is the right time, so that after he shows us the answers we so long to hear, we will continue to seek him and not stop just because he answered us. The biggest plan he has for us is for us to know him and to be like him. One way we know him is to SEEK him.

So right now, we

SEEK.