A few days ago, my daughter stopped by with one of her sons to pick up something. I was down at the pool and so he searched me out and, in his hand, he held something.
It was a hydrangea bloom that had fallen off its bush tucked into a drinking glass full of soil. It was such a sweet gift, although I knew that hydrangea would not last because it needed water, not soil. And its life was quite limited, at any rate, now that it was no longer connected to its source for life.
But he didn’t know that. And he had enthusiastically planted that little hydrangea branch for Grandma. How sweet is that?
I put the glass on my kitchen windowsill and watched it slowly deteriorate (as you can see from the photo above). The hydrangea cannot live in the conditions that my grandson gave it, although he truly thought he was doing what was best for that little branch.
I have been really thinking recently about James 1:5-8–
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
I fear that I have been doubting as I bring my big requests before God. I don’t think I trust that He can work.
Yesterday, as I was sharing this with a friend, she said something quite profound.
It’s often not that we doubt God can work. It’s that we doubt that He will do things our way.
Ouch.
That is the bottom line, I fear.
And I had to think of my grandson and that hydrangea branch.
How often are we just like him? We think we know the best path but it’s not the best path. God stops us in our tracks and we get frustrated because we can’t understand why. But God knows what we don’t know.
That conversation yesterday really has had me thinking. We know we aren’t in control. We do know that. But yet we so often act like we are. And we grip things so tightly, as if that will keep things from changing. And we boldly march ahead as if we know the answers and the right way to go, when, so often, we just…don’t.
And then, when we end up with a wilting bloom, we are surprised.
It is a never-ending process to learn to lean into God’s will, especially when it is not my will. And to seek Him above all else.
Often, just like my grandson, we do things with the best of intentions and they aren’t necessarily wrong things. But we are finite and we just don’t know.
But God not only knows all—He loves us, too! (Romans 8:35-39; Galatians 2:20; I John 3:20)
Understanding this about God should change how we pray. It should give us the courage and the desire to pray with faith and without doubt.
Perhaps our struggle lies in the fact that we haven’t fully realized Who God is.
I recently read a book by Richard Sibbes called Discouragement’s Recovery. It was a very helpful book and I recommend it—particularly if you struggle with being discouraged.
I want to end with a quote from this book that helps us understand a bit more what we have in God if we are HIS. It was helpful to me and I hope it will be helpful to you, too—
I beseech you, give me a little leave to press this; for certainly there is more comfort in this word ‘My God,’ than in all the words of the world; for what is God to me if he be not my God, and so make me his? For this same propriety of comfort is more than all the comforts in the world.
We account a little patch of ground, or corner of an house of our own, more than all the city and town where we live. This comforts a man, when he can say, This is mine. As a man that hath a wife, it may be, she is not of the best, or the richest, or the fairest, yet she comforts him more, and he takes more content in her, than in all the women in the world, because she is his wife; so if a man can say, ‘O my God,’ he needs not say any more, for it is more than if he could say, All the world is mine. if we have God we have all, and if we had a thousand worlds, all were nothing to this, if we cannot say ‘God is my God.’
Therefore, though the child of God may seem to be a poor man, yet he is the only rich man. Other men have the riches of this world, as a kind of usurpers, for they have not the highest right unto them. Worldly men are like unto bankrupts, who are taken to be rich men because they have a great deal of goods in their possession, but the true right belongs to others, and so they prove in the end to be worth nothing. I beseech you, consider what God’s servants have said heretofore: ‘God is my portion,’ Lam. 3:24. If God be our God, then he will supply all our wants, as it shall make for the best unto us. This is a great comfort to all Christians in what estate soever. God in dividing things, it may be, he hath given others honours, beauty, and riches, and parts of nature. Well! God falleth to thy lot.
Let the worldlings, the lascivious and ambitions persons, make themselves merry with their portions in this life, yet let the Christian, in what estate soever, glory in his portion, for God is his, and all things else. Though there be many changes in thyself, why shouldst thou be discouraged or disquieted in any state whatsoever? God is thine to do thee good.
~Richard Sibbes, Discouragement’s Recovery
I know the language of this is a bit archaic, but there is such profound truth here. We forget that, if we are God’s dear redeemed child, then the God of ALL is OUR God. He loves and cares for us personally. How awesome is that?
Understanding this truth helps us to pray with faith and to abandon the doubt. This truth helps us keep an eternal perspective rather than a temporal one. This truth reminds us that we are not just a random dot on the timeline of history but that God loves us and He is watching over us. This truth will keep us from relying on ourselves and our own wisdom and leaning into God’s will and His wisdom.
Now, if only we could remember this when we are faced with that next trial or decision or challenge…
AMEN!