I have been reading the book "The Circle Maker" by Mark Batterson. It is amazing and has helped me see things in a new perspective. I HIGHLY recommend this book. It will transform your prayer life forever. As a result of this book, I have been devoting more time to prayer and have a better understanding of how to pray . I also feel like I have learned a couple things about myself as a result of reading this book, lessons at church, and through my improved prayer life. One thing that I learned and am still working on came from a combination of all three of the above mentioned resources.
I have learned that I tend to be a little bit like Sarah from the Old Testament....no, I'm not sending my husband off to sleep with someone else so he can have a child. I'm like Sarah in that I tend to become impatient and try to do things in my own time and in my own strength, rather than praying through and waiting on the Lord. One recent example that comes to mind is my decision to promote the Body By Vi 90 day challenge. At the time I decided to promote, I was desperate to be able to be a stay at home mom and raise my son. I had prayed about this earnestly for a long time and things were looking positive, but not definite. In hindsight, I can now say that I took matters into my own hand and tried to force it into happening rather than being patient and praying through. As a result of doing this, I believe that I robbed God of some of his glory in providing for us so that I can stay home and be a full time mom.
As a result of learning this about myself, I have started to examine this tendency. I have known that I am a very strong person, while this is a characteristic I like about myself, I think that it can be a downfall. When I get impatient and want something to happen, if things aren't progressing the way that I think they should be, I turn to myself and my strength to do what I can to make it happen. In doing so, I short change myself from the blessings that could come from allowing God to do it perfectly in His perfect time. I also short change God, in that I don't fully recognize what He has done for me and don't give Him adequate praise. One thing that I have been praying for and working on since this revelation, is that God will show me His fingerprints in my life so that I may be able to give Him the thanks and praise that is due Him.
Another thing that struck me came as a result of our sermon this morning. Our pastor preached on the healing of the blind man in John 9. I don't remember exactly how he phrased it, but he made a statement to the effect of "We should all be sharing the miracles that God has done in our lives". He then went on to make the point that while we may not have been healed from blindness, we have experienced miracles. One being the life that Jesus saved us from. That caused me to think about the miracles I have had in my life. In some ways I think this ties into the above thoughts on my difficulty to recognize the hand of God in my life. Obviously, I am not blind, and I have been blessed not to have anything as serious as that in my life. But, I need to learn to liken the things that God does for to the enormity of being healed from blindness. I feel that my story is pretty ordinary, and generally not worth sharing. However, I will be praying that God will reveal things that I need to be sharing with others. After all, that was one of my main goal in starting this blog, to help others by sharing my experiences.
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