Column Post by Glenda Harbinson
You’re wondering if God is going to answer your prayer. You are certain that you’re asking for something He wants every one of His children to have. Yet here you are longing, pleading, begging God to answer this one prayer with a yes, now. Not in six months, or a year, but now.
”For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.” Isaiah 55:8
God answered a prayer four months ago with one of the most life-changing answers to prayer I have ever experienced. I started praying for this particular blessing when I was a child. Forty—yes, forty—years later God answered. I’d had many a conversation with God over this, even came up with answers of my own over the years (they never did work out well!), and at times I simply believed God said no and I needed to accept it.
Deep down, the faith of that small child who’d been praying still lived and couldn’t stop. God has blessed that faith.
I am praying and again I am often discouraged. You’d think I would have learned the first time.
With this specific prayer, there are a few things I can do to help bring it about. I am asking God to change a relationship in my life. I long to be loved and cherished the way God loves His Church.
If I want someone to love me that way, I am going to need to love that way. Don’t I already? I have asked God to show me things about me that need to change—to show me what I am doing that may be causing wounds in the other person. My first and foremost prayer right now is, ‘Lord, Change Me’.
God is working in my heart. He is showing me things about myself that are hard for me to accept. Sometimes I cry over how unChristlike I have been while expecting to be loved and cherished in return. I have been looking at it from a selfish point of view. If he would only treat me right, then I would…
That is a common worldly perspective, and God is showing me over and over how it isn’t a Godly perspective. I must rid myself of what is rotten in my OWN heart.
“Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives…” 1 Pet 3:1
Our actions should be such that we could win our husbands over without words. That has become my prayer: that my actions will be just as Scripture describes. No more “God I want Him to love me like you love the Church” (tho I do!), but that I may love him in such a manner.
Is there someone in your life you need to love like this?
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P.S. We’d love to know your thoughts, so please be sure to comment below. Each of our commenters will be entered in a drawing for our current FREE book giveaway, Mothers & Daughters: Mending a Strained Relationship by author Teena Stewart.
Glenda is a homeschooling mom of four in New Brunswick, Canada. She also fosters one teen and provides respite care and tutoring for another. She and her paramedic husband Mark have been married for 24 years. Glenda’s writings often reflect her personal experience parenting and teaching children with developmental and learning differences, as well as a particular empathy for moms with chronic illness. She blogs at http://pwsmommy.homeschooljournal.net/ and can be reached by emailing glenda.harbinson@gmail.com
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