Becoming a Christian at the young age of 14 and being a member of a church that excelled at Biblical teaching are two of my life's richest blessing. I was taught the foundations of Christianity in my first few years after giving my life to Christ and the Biblical instruction beyond First Principles began in my high school Bible class. One of the lessons I learned early on was to embrace discipline and correction. The Word tells us that God disciplines those He loves. Note - it does not say He "punishes" - it says He disciplines. Proverbs 12:1 says "he who loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates correction is stupid."
So I learned early to appreciate correction. Now of course I don't mean that I enjoy being yelled at, belittled, or being spoke to in a condescending manner. However, when a Godly person with a good heart speaks correction out of care and concern for me, I recognize it as a good thing - even if unpleasant. Recognizing correction as a good thing does not guarantee that my thick skull will get it on the first round. Some lessons have taken me years to learn. I appreciate the patience and unconditional love of the Godly people in my life. What I appreciate even more is when God decides to show me Himself - in a way that is undeniably God and no one else.
God has spent the last month or two doing just that. He has brought correction to me in the area of prayer. Obviously, being saved for 24 and half years - I pray. I don't even like to use the word "pray" because it sounds religious. I communicate with the Lord. I have a relationship with Him and in order to have a relationship there must be communication. (duh) So as much as prayer is a part of my life, I have not fully recognized its value and power until recently.
For years now, when I would talk with my mentor and friend about things that bothered me, she would say "why not talk to God about it" or "bring it before God - He will either change the circumstance or change my view or attitude about it". Truthfully, this ticked me off. Not because I don't want to pray - but I thought it was cop-out for those who lacked courage. If something wasn't right - we need to do something to fix it - don't just "pray".
In some instances, I still believe that. I do believe folks use prayer as a cop-out. For instance, we find out there are children starving to death in the world. Well, we will pray. God is up there saying - stop praying and get food to them.
Issues exist in our world that we can certainly act upon and bring about change. For those instances, we ought to pray, then act. The prayer is to seek God's direction on HOW He would have us help the situation.
As numerous as those instances are, there are a multitude of issues that we can't do one darn thing about. We can't change people. Heck, we can barely change ourselves. These are the instances that I have not recognized or trusted in the power of prayer and the power of God to act. Oh, I have prayed. I have spoken to God out of frustration because I could do nothing else. I don't believe I prayed expecting God to take care of it.
So God has spent the last two months increasing my faith and enhancing my prayer life. He has answered prayers that I have been praying for five years, as well as prayers that I prayed for 5 days.
A few examples:
Those who know me know that I love my church. It's not perfect by any means but it is my home. Since joining the church in 2007, I noticed that we didn't really embrace other cultures - especially in our music. This is an example of something I can do nothing about. I can't force a 4,000 member church to consider music that differs from what they are used to. By embracing different styles of worship - we would make more folks feel at home in our church. We would also benefit by understanding other cultures. For five years we have move forward singing Chris Tomlin. (Don't get me wrong - I love Chris Tomlin) For five years I have prayed that we as a church would get a little more cross-cultural in our worship. Truthfully, my prayers were complaints. "Lord, this white suburban church can't see beyond white suburbia...." In retrospect, the Lord was speaking to me sounding similar to a friend of mine. He was saying: "Relax, I got this." I didn't hear Him - and I wouldnt have believed Him anyway. I mean, after all, could the Creator of all things and the Ruler who reigns as King of kings and Lord of lords, really be capable of changing a white suburban church? (insert sarcasm here). Well, in November, during the Thanksgiving All Worship Night, we were worshipping intensely and I was totally wrapped up in worship. Totally unexpected, out of nowhere - a man slips quietly out of the choir and comes to the front... and starts rapping! I screamed like a teenager at a concert. Then I started to cry realizing that five years of prayer had been answered. I also started looking around to see if any old white folk needed CPR ;). God had been listening. God had cared. And God brought about change - in His time and without Raquel's help.
In early December, I noticed a Christian leader acting well, not like a Christian leader. I got angry. I don't want to go into detail here lest too many figure out who I am talking about. However, I got angry and I wanted to "do something." This is the Raquel way. However, this person wouldnt have listened to me and no one in leadership would have seen it as a big enough deal to intervene. So again, my numb skull complains to my friend and she says "how about praying for him?" Really? I truly thought a good punch in the head would fix things better than me praying. But, since I do have some degree of self-control. I prayed. A week later I received word that this person had apologized to the people who were mistreated. Again, God took care of it.
A more recent example happened at work. My co-worker got let go right in the middle of our busy time when we had multiple deadlines to meet. Okay, time to rise to the challenge. I came in on a Sunday afternoon to get caught up on some work and I find an email from my well-intentioned boss telling me she was going to send "temporary help". My first reaction was "Are you nuts?" Having to train someone in the middle of the deadline crunch would have been a disaster, not a help. But I was cranky and not in the frame of mind to speak to her about it in a respectful manner. So I just kept working and I asked God to please show her that this would not help me. Two days later in a team meeting, she announced that she decided against the temporary help. That was the second time I wanted to break out a tamborine in the middle of the office. (This first being when someone gave me hazelnut coffee). The funny thing with this one - I could have said something. I could have talked to her about it. But I didn't have the energy to funnel my emotions into respectful speech - so I gave it to God and He took care of it. :)
Lastly, we all know how I feel about the issue of racial reconciliation. I am not going to go into detail here - but another blog post is cooking on this subject. But I have prayed for DECADES, long before I came to North Way, that this issue would be discussed from our pulpits. After more than ten years of prayer, it was preached this weekend.
I think God has more than proved Himself. Moral of the story - when an issue arises and you can do something... pray, then act. When an issue arises that you can do nothing about.... pray, then pray, and then pray. In your conversations with God, He will either change the circumstances or He will change you or both. Every answer will come in His perfect timing, not ours. And the answer will come in a such a way that He will get the credit for it. Divine change will occur - and that beats any change that Raquel could ever bring about. :) I am thankful for His correction in my life - and His answered prayer.
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