During the winter months most of my mornings are spent in a little sunny spot on my sofa with my bible or devotional and journal and me and Him. I pray for whatever is pending or listed in my mind or on our prayer wall. I have been praying for a friend's friend who I don't know very well at all but he has been in the hospital with some pretty serious health issues. I pray for a miracle. I pray for healing and deliverance and peace and comfort but I have been thinking alot lately about what all that equates to looking like on this side of eternity.
Death is inevitable after all, for all of us. We must all shed these temporary dwellings that we call bodies. With that thought comes an uncertainty and I sometimes find myself not knowing how to pray. As someone who believes my Father loves us with more love than our minds can even begin to understand, a miracle can be death. Now I know that it is ok to ask my Father for what I want in a situation and to not be anxious about anything, but looking back over stories in my present life and also those believers who have left us such wonderful examples of praying for the desire they felt at the present moment but knowing that G-d has the ultimate and final say, I wonder if we may have something a little the matter with our thinking. The Hebrew boys facing death in a furnace said that their G-d was able to deliver but if He didn't.... (you should know the rest). Now the three of those boys coming out of the furnace unharmed is most definitely a miracle but if those boys had died in that furnace, I think in many of our minds we don't see that as HIS deliverance. I know for a long time I didn't. If G-d delivers isn't it supposed to be a favorably joyful outcome? Shouldn't we all have our lives back in order just the way it "should" be. And tomorrow when I wake up all is "right" with the world and I can go back to my wonderful life being free from sickness and sadness and whatever other heavy things tend to get in the way of this paradise. But that is just it isn't it? THIS isn't paradise! That will come only after the sickness and death and prayers for miracles that do not have outcomes that sometimes make us forget what is really going on here. There is a pastor that I know that calls it over realized eschatology. I think many of us suffer from a case of it. Believing that we will live this paradise of a life here and then go on to another height of pleasure and enjoyment "there". My prayer for my friend's friend is that he would be delivered and healed. My prayer for my niece is the same. My prayers for many others is the same... I WANT a miracle for them to be around for alot longer, to live strong healthy lives. But I have to trust that just like G-d could have delivered the Hebrew boys into His own hand and took them home to be with Him that could be and is the result for many. We have to trust that when and only when G-d says so will someone be made well or delivered into His hands. The common cliche of "a better place" is a reality not just a catch phrase. Prayer is the communication that we are given to talk to the Father but mostly to remember that He is constant through each and every miracle no matter what it looks like to us and He is the ONE that can make them happen. To live IS Christ to die is GAIN! It really doesn't get any sweeter than that.
