This May Be the DayJesus Says, "Yes!"

 

“I’ve prayed and prayed, and God doesn’t answer.” How many times have I heard that from frustrated people? I have voiced the same complaint, praying for salvation for many of those I love, interceding for a friend’s healing, asking to see the fruit of my writing labors.

I’ve stood on the edge of a precipice watching Faith and Hope beckon to me with peaceful smiles from across an abyss. Meanwhile, not far from where I stand, Disappointment sighs and Resentment scowls. That last one snaps its fingers ordering me to join them. How am I supposed to avoid so much negativity and lean toward faith’s glorious promises in the midst of unanswered prayers?

The Bible instructs us to pray believing. Believe God can save. Believe
God provides. Believe He heals. Believe He will give me the desires of my heart.

If I am to pray believing, then I am to be expectant each day. This may be the day! And if God does not answer this day with “yes,” then I am to carry on peacefully and joyfully, persisting into tomorrow with the same prayer.

 

What about the complaint that I opened with? If God promises to answer our prayers, why doesn’t He? Is it His fault – does He not keep His promises? I can think of three possible answers, and I’m sure there are several more.

1. One of God’s promises regarding answered prayers comes from Psalm 37:4. “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” Ah, there’s a condition attached to that promise. Is Jesus my delight? Is joy and peace in Christ a way of life for me? Or do I run to Him with my petitions when I need help but otherwise don’t give Him a whole lot of thought?

Evaluation Question 1: Do I really delight in God’s presence in my life every day? If the answer is no, God has no obligation to answer my prayers. He often does anyway, but He doesn’t have to.

2. God also promises to say yes if you pray in the name of Jesus (John 14:13-14). That’s not a magic formula. “In the name of Jesus” is not the equivalent of “Abracadabra.” “In the name of Jesus” indicates that I know He has all the authority, and I have none. He has all the wealth and power in the universe and beyond. I am weak and penniless by eternal standards. When I come to Him with my requests, I must acknowledge that my own account is worthless.

Evaluation Question 2: Do I realize that I’m asking God to benefit me with funds from His bank, that I have no riches of my own other than what He chooses to give me?

3. Give it time, yes, more than you want to give. So many of our prayers hinge on someone else’s will. God is not going to override that. Otherwise, humans would be robots. But He does know how to bring someone around to His way of thinking. Let Him work it out with them.

Evaluation Question #3: Am I willing to give God as much time as He needs to put everything in place so my prayer will be answered? If the answer is “no,” if I’m not willing to keep praying–for decades if that’s what it takes--then how much do I really care?

Don’t think I’m a pointing a finger at you. All these questions are written in first person. After thirteen years of prayer for one individual, I get discouraged. After ten years of writing fiction, I wonder if I was right to follow my passion. I thought God had encouraged me to go for it. Then I remind myself. God is God, and I am not.

I return to my knees, knowing my prayers are the desires of my heart. I delight in the Lord throughout every day. I recognize His name is more powerful than all others. I trust Him to put every detail in place.

Maybe today is the day when Jesus says, “Yes.”

 

Linda Sammaritan writes realistic fiction, mostly for kids ages ten to fourteen. She is currently working on a middle grade trilogy, World Without Sound, based on her own experiences growing up with a deaf sister.

Linda had always figured she’d teach middle-graders until school authorities presented her with a retirement wheelchair at the overripe age of eighty-five. However, God changed those plans when He gave her a growing passion for writing fiction. In May of 2016, she blew goodbye kisses to her students and dedicated her work hours to learning the craft.

A wife, mother of three, grandmother to seven, Linda regales the youngest grandchildren with “Nona Stories,” tales of her childhood. Maybe one day those stories will be in picture books!

Where Linda can be found on the web:

www.lindasammaritan.com

www.facebook.com/lindasammaritan

www.twitter.com/LindaSammaritan

www.hoosierink.blogspot.com

 

 

 

"Because you say so"

I’ve been dealing with discouragement in my writing. The novel I’m working on is taking much longer than I intended and all I hear is how hard my genre is to sell. But I’ve also had this Bible passage that has been really encouraging through these months and I want to share it with you.

In Luke chapter five, Jesus borrows a boat from some fishermen who had just come in from a night out working. He takes the boat out into the water a bit and teaches the crowd, then comes back and tells the fishermen to go and put out their nets again.

Okay, these guys had worked all night with nothing to show for it. They’d cleaned their nets and they were ready to go home. I can imagine how tired they must have been, maybe frustrated. The thing that they were supposed to be good at wasn’t going so well.

Have you ever felt that way? It’s how I’ve been feeling for months. But you know what? The story doesn’t end with them laughing it off and heading home to sleep. Simon Peter knew the power of doing what God asks. He admitted he wasn’t sure it would go any better than the night they had, but he’d do it anyway. The Bible says in Luke 5:5, “Simon answered, ‘Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.’”

Even under the shared banner of fiction, we write different things, in different genres, with different perspectives. But one thing we have in common is that God has placed a love of words and stories in us. He’s called us to write. And when He says to do something, you can be sure it isn’t for nothing. Good will come out of it, even if it’s hard. Maybe we won’t achieve the world’s definition of success in a literary career, but there’s a reason God has brought each of us to write.

Those fishermen pulled in a catch they couldn’t believe. It wasn’t a normal night’s work and it wasn’t something they could take credit for. God had used their faith and willingness to step out and do what He asked. And I believe He’ll do the same for us. Even if your writing career isn’t going the way you thought it was supposed to, there’s definitely a reason to keep writing. God has something in store for you.

If you’ve been struggling in this area at all, I encourage you to look back at the last few posts here at Hoosier Ink, too. They are so good, with both practical tips and wonderful encouragement.

If you want to share, feel free to post ways you battle discouragement in your writing life!

Abbey Downey never expected her love for writing to turn into a career, but she’s thankful for the chance to write inspirational romance, with two books published under the name Mollie Campbell. A life-long Midwestern girl, Abbey lives in Central Indiana, where her family has roots back to the 1840s. She couldn’t be happier spending her days putting words on paper and hanging out with her husband, two kids, and a rather enthusiastic beagle.

You can check out Abbey’s books at www.abbeydowney.com

Creativity - a Spiritual Issue

 “The Artist’s Way – a Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity” is a self-help book by Julia Cameron to inspire creative people of all types to a greater creativity. One of the chapters caught my attention because it jived with a sermon last Sunday in which the young minister quoted from a book he’d read. “You can never exaggerate God.”  Think on that for a moment, or many minutes, because there is no end to God.  Yet, how often we limit God.

“Creativity is a spiritual issue. Progress is made by leaps of faith.”

Cameron writes, “One of the chief barriers to accepting God’s generosity is our limited notion of what we are in fact able to accomplish. We may tune in to the voice of the creator within, hear a message—and then discount it as crazy or impossible. On the one hand, we take ourselves very seriously and don’t want to look like idiots pursuing some patently grandiose scheme. On the other hand, we don’t take ourselves—or God—seriously enough and so we define as grandiose many schemes that, with God’s help, may fall well within our grasp.”

God is greater than what we conceive and humanity’s need to put him in a box so we can understand him is a detriment to our spiritual growth and to our professional growth.

“Most of us never consider how powerful the creator really is. Instead we draw very limited amounts of the power available to us. We decide how powerful God is for us. We unconsciously set a limit on how much God can give us or help us. We are stingy with ourselves. And if we receive a gift beyond our imagining, we often send it back,” Cameron says.

Have you sent back a gift God gave you? Of course, we all have. The problem is we are often far beyond reversing that decision before we realize what a mistake we’ve made. Why do we do this?

1. We don’t want to overspend our spiritual abundance.

2. We consider God a capricious parent figure.

3. We try to dictate how and when the gift comes.

Each of these problems, and others, is rooted in a lack of faith in the goodness and greatness of God. Even saying we don’t doubt God we only doubt ourselves is an act of faithlessness. Who are we to argue with what God has declared good?

In Isaiah 7 God sends the prophet to encourage king Ahaz that those warring against him will not succeed. God will give any sign to Ahaz as proof. Ahaz says, “Oh no. I’ll not test God.”

Whether this was lack of faith or false humility a.k.a. pride, God was angered. God gave his own sign: the prophecy of the virgin birth which would happen long after Ahaz could see it. Ahaz missed God’s personal gift prepared especially for him in a situation that affected the entire nation. How often do we do the same?

“If we learn to think of receiving God’s good as being an act of worship—cooperating with God’s plan to manifest goodness in our lives—we can begin to let go of having to sabotage ourselves.”

Accepting God as our Source increases our confidence that God will provide. Our job is to listen for how. When we have done that, our creativity will blossom and so will our faith.

Mary Allen lives in Northern Indiana with her husband and two dogs. "Kernels of Hope" published by Majesty House, "Journey to Christmas" and "Ten Days to an Empty Tomb" are available from the author of on Kindle ebooks. "Full Spectrum Living" will be released soon.