Have you ever put your heart and soul into something and then had the whole thing fall apart on you? Of course you have, we all have!
Teenagers discover their baby brother has chicken pox the day before a family Christmas
vacation to Hawaii. Single Dad’s, on their only Saturday off this quarter,
stand with a cooler full of cooked hot dogs and stare in disbelief as rain
puddles around the bases on their son’s field of dreams and every mothers-of-the-bride
whose florist was MIA as the pews filled and the organist began to play know exactly what I mean!
Usually this happens in single events, separated by space and time, but not this
week! No, this week the hits just kept coming; one after the other. First, a group for which I had established a not-for-profit organization, attended training to participate in and planned my summer around suddenly went “belly-up”. A wedding, scheduled to take place in our
garden this weekend with reception to follow on the patio is not looking good.
As I type, the bride-to-be is in the emergency room about to be admitted. And then there are the 30 devotions I thought were ready for submission that the publisher wants revamped…
When life gets messy and things go wrong, I have to fight my urge to call a friend for
help, advice or a shoulder to cry on before I turn to God in prayer. My natural tendency is to try and do everything I can to fix the problem and then pray asking God to bless my efforts instead of turning to Him and seeking His way in the situation.
We get it all backwards. When our best efforts begin to fall apart, the first thing we
should do is stop and pray, not the last! How many times have we heard someone
say, “Well, I guess all we can do now is pray”? What a slap in the face that must be to God!
When we make prayer our last resort instead of our first response, we not only show how
little belief we have that our Heavenly Father loves us and is for us, but we also
miss the peace He has planned for us when we trust Him. “Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the
Lord with all your heart and mind and do not rely on your own insight or understanding. In all your ways know, recognize, and acknowledge Him and He will direct and make straight and plain your paths.
Proverbs 3:4-6
I don’t know how everything is going to work out but I do know this. I have a lot more peace in my life when things
start “going South” if I don’t run for the phone but instead pick up the hot-line to heaven and pray.
PS – Why do things go “South” anyway? Why don’t they go “West”?
