Delaying God's Timing

After a year of trying to wait patiently on God's timing, we have finally had our prayers answered in finding ourselves a bigger home! 

Our journey of searching for one has been pot-holed with many  doubts, confusion and disappointments, but as a faith-believing Christian, I continued to trust God for His perfect timing in answering my prayer.  

However, in retrospect, I am left wondering if I might have been delaying God's timing, by what exactly I was praying for.  You see, I was so focused on my wants list, believing for God's favour, that I never stopped to give any thought to what it was we actually needed or if it even fitted in with God's will for our lives.  I had thought that if I had these desires for a specific home, then it must be okay to ask God for it... It was only in the week before we found this new home that the angle of my prayers had changed - perhaps in a resigned desperation, but I began to pray 'according to His will' and to trust Him with our needs, laying down my detailed want list, which has left me with this thought...  Maybe we do delay God's timing when we become so focused on what WE want, instead of what God knows we need...  Although I still believe that God loves us so much that He does want to bless us abundantly with His favour, we should never treat God like our Fairy-Godmother! 

It is only when we can lay down our wants and pray for what it is God wants for us and what we actually need, with the right motives, that we can expect God to answer our prayers...

Silence is Acceptance

It is said that we often teach people how to treat us, just by allowing it. When we do not object to being bullied and emotionally or for that matter, physically abused, it is our silent way of telling the perpetrator that we accept it. It does not matter who is doing the abuse, we need to make a stand and let them know that we deserve better.  They will never feel it necessary to apologise if you have not made known that you have been hurt and offended by their words or actions.

So often when we have conflict in our relationships, we cringe away in fear, keep silent and instead pray for peace like it's a magic wand to remove the friction - instead of allowing God to use the conflict to bring a more solid kind of peace.  Very often it is the friction that is the catalyst that will smooth out the bumps, when handled correctly.  

By bottling up our offences and not expressing our emotions, we are just delaying the explosion, because the truth is that negativity ALWAYS has a way of becoming exposed, one way or another!  God often doesn't want our prayers for peace when there are obvious issues that need to be addressed and dealt with.  There are too many people who wear a smile on their faces, but who are carrying a bandaged and bruised heart, only because they continue to carry on as normal, pretending nothing was said or done and acting as if they deserve it! 

Sometimes in life, we don't only need the peace and calmness of a lamb, but also the courage and boldness of a lion...