Answered and Unanswered Prayers

I feel very thankful this morning for some small but very tangible mercies that I’ve seen in the past couple days:

• My husband Ben is taking classes for his teaching degree. He has class on Thursdays (and is not a skipper), but next Thursday we are hoping to have an open house to celebrate Christmas, see some friends, and hopefully reach out to our neighbors. I figured he would just get there barely in time for the start—but he came home from class yesterday and said the professor told them they don’t need to come to class next week!

• Per the last note, we have school to pay for and are trying to save pennies here and there. So last night I was making muffins from scratch. I was working fast, and without looking closely at the recipe, and alas-- I added three times as much baking soda as I was supposed to. I had already put in a couple more ingredients by the time I noticed, so there wasn’t much I could do but scoop out some white powdered stuff and hope the mis-measurement wouldn’t ruin the batch. I stuck them in the oven and prayed (like my friend Grace always says) to the Great Chef, the One who made the very properties that cause leavening to expand in baked things… and asked that He would just touch those little muffins and make them okay. And Ben commented twice about how good they were when we had them for supper.

I look back at those vignettes and nearly feel silly for how trivial they seem. Why should anyone even care?

Here are two reflections, and perhaps others will contribute others:

1) What are the things that most frequently break my sense of peace, prompt me to turn sour and frustrated, strain my ability to commit my way to the Lord?

Not generally calamities, but irritations. My life has been mostly free of tragedy and horror—but it is continually broken by a series of interruptions, errors, and inconveniences, insignificant and menial in themselves, but often forceful enough in their impact to disrupt my heart.

Would I not, then, expect that the realm in which God is pleased to work would extend to fully encompass these kinds of irritants? And—if that is the case, and it surely is—does it not honor Him and strengthen my “faith muscles” when I learn and learn again to turn those slight things over to His care quickly, immediately instead of worrying them like a bone and snapping at anyone who crosses my path in the process?

Lord, let me learn (and remember)!

2) What about the times when I pray… and Ben gets home late and/or the whole recipe flops and gets dumped in the trashcan? (Both experiences I have had.)

Here, I believe, is when I often turn functionally atheist. I respond to the human factors with selfishness, frustration, and (under it all) a fundamental faithlessness that God is the same good God as when the muffins turn out beautifully.

The same inclination that feels embarrassed even to put in writing those two minor answers to prayer above—this same inclination drives me to utterly disregard me deeply-held conviction that God rules all things, answers all prayers, and always “causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (Rom. 8:28… that most quoted, most loved, and most hated verse, but that’s for another post).

But isn’t this the seed-form of the greatest crises of faith we are ever likely to have?

Stated in curtest form, I reject the stated truth of God’s nature, character, and ways and bow to the god of emotion, empirical evidence, and personal perception.

Perhaps these moments are really God’s gift to us of small, simple “training wheel” lessons of faith: “the conviction of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1).

And I am convinced that His desire is to honor the trust of the one who clings to the promise in the stupid moments of irritation, interruption, and seemingly insignificant disappointment.

“And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him” (Heb. 11:5).

“The eyes of the LORD move to and fro throughout the earth, that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His” (2 Chron. 16:9a).

Lord, You’re faithful. Always faithful. Please let me trust You more fully, less dependent on emotion and circumstance. And thank You for the countless times You bend low to bless and smooth the way for this weak heart.