Expectations in prayer

My brain and heart are super-saturated at the moment, and at some point in the near future (hopefully tomorrow, perhaps while I deal with my car tire. . . . . .)  I'll do some more fleshed out thoughts from the Send Conference, but there was one thing in particular from this afternoon that I've been mulling over and it's important enough that I don't want to lose grasp of it overnight.

Before I get into it, I feel I should give this warning: I have tried to be as transparent as possible from the beginning with what I have shared about my journey after Cam died (and even before I suppose, though my blog before then was a mess of half finished book projects and random things that were coming into my life as an early disciple).  I am not pretending that I have revealed every single struggle and victory, but I have also tried my best to be clear that I do not have everything 100% figured out.  Especially with eloquent writing (and being able to sit and think and hide behind a keyboard) it is very easy to come off too authoritatively.  At the same time I want to share what I'm discovering in this kind of forum because I want people to be able to see Jesus in my search for hope, comfort, solace, whatever.  And really at the end of the day, I am an internal processor, and doing this helps me to straighten out my thoughts easier than having actual conversations (not that I never want to talk, but actually it is easier for me to begin to talk to people after I have sorted out my thoughts.  Otherwise my brain goes much, much faster than my mouth can and I end up incoherent.  Or feel like it anyway), so in most ways these writings were always meant to be a public sharing of a personal processing.

That all being said. . .

One of the sessions I attended today was about changing the corporate prayer life of the local church. There was a lot of great stuff, some things I knew and had left at the wayside and other things I hadn't considered.  It focused primarily on the Lord's Prayer as a template for all prayer life.  Near the end of the session, the speaker focused on Jesus' last prayer in Gethsemane.  There was some interesting commentary on some of the details around the story, but the primary thing that struck me in the context of dealing with grief (and Heather's death and my emotional response to not just last week but really even the past two and a half years) comes from Matthew 26:39-

And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”

The speaker said something very telling about this (not an exact quote): if you continually pray to God to do impossible things that only He can do, and you do not take in to consideration His will and sovereignty, you are setting yourself up for a lifetime of disappointment in prayer.  Basically, there is every reason to come to the Creator of the universe and make requests that can only be completed by Him. . . but it is just as important to recognize that, just as Jesus said, "not as I will, but as you will."

My personal epiphany lies not in a changing of my prayer approach, but instead in realizing that someone, probably more than one someone, taught me to pray this way well.  The analyst in me couldn't help but research my own past. . . so I found this from a couple years after I moved down here to Florida, and then this (which I am not linking but am pasting instead. . . I kept a journal for myself as I grieved, see processing concepts above, but I'm not ready to make that a public display yet) from six months after she died:

God is good.  Sometimes I take that thought for granted.  But yes, God is still good.  I don't understand, but I look at my life circumstances and see His Hand all over.  Making new friends (some even my age!!) and His provision in gigs (because now I'm not only a master's student but also going to be a full time musician rather than a teacher) and I can still praise Him even through the insanity of circumstances.  I was reminded of that today.  And my life wouldn't look like this at all if she were still here- in fact I would be in a very difficult situation and don't know that I would have made the right choice, since cancer came above all in those last few months.  That doesn't mean I don't miss her, but even in this short time out I see Providence, which is encouraging.  The places where I am plugging in were prepared in advance for me, and there is great comfort in that.  
  

I can't help but think that this is the answer to the questions I have been semi-consciously asking myself- when will the grief finally break me?  When do I have the big fallout, not just what happened right after, but where's the part where I lose my mind?  When do I get stuck in bed for months on end?

The answer?  As I cling to the truth of Scripture, in knowing the sovereignty of God and see that He is good and does good, that sometimes bad things happen through no one's fault, I do not have to worry about those things.  Like the post I linked at the very top of this, I shouldn't expect to grieve like the world. . . and part of that solidity comes from a prayer life that is focused primarily on God and not on me.  Do not get me wrong; from the time we got engaged (and probably before) my prayers were often centered around the quality of life Cam and I would share because of her history with cancer. . . and unfortunately I have no proof in my prior blogs because I stopped writing for a while, so boo on that, I would love to pull insight from there. . . anyway.  But in all of that, both of us said "whatever God has in store, we trust Him, and we will go through it."  I promise you I would not have been that strong if my wife had not been able to say that. . . but man, that was her personality.  She even said to Heather (this was right after she was diagnosed and before Cam's re-cancer was discovered) that cancer is just a pause button in life, not pressing stop.  Like. . . how do you go through 23 months of treatment and not be bitter?  I posit and I am sure Cam would agree that that is only through God.  Not that she or I had a perfect relationship with the Father, not that there weren't fights and anger toward Him and wondering why. . . but in the end, deep down the root of our faith was in the firm belief that God knows best and would walk with us through it all.

And He is still walking with me.



I feel like I got off the rails a bit there at the end, but I'm very tired and I need to wrap this up, so I guess my point is this: the prayer life of the Christian must be rooted in God's promises and character.  It's something I am still learning, but for those people who have called me "strong" in this journey. . . just please know that it is not my strength, but God's.  And if you lack that strength, if God doesn't make sense, or you don't know Him. . . then reach out and talk to me.