Selling God Short
on looking for answered prayers in all the wrong places 🎵
Father God, please, give me something to take my mind off of the hard season I’m in, something that will spark joy and be a welcomed delight, preferably, Lord, something that uses my giftings and passions, maybe something with my art, or community-building, or even ministry. Lord, I need this right now. Please…
That was my prayer for God to award some-good-thing to come into my life since he’s not answering my prayer to take away the pain and suffering1. I just wanted something, I didn’t even know what it was, to distract me with delight.
Of course, I know that God is enough and I shouldn’t need ‘something’ else, but I asked anyway, because I really, reaaallllly wanted something.
So, I began looking for it. I thought it would show up in my creative practice, or perhaps it might be something to do with ministry since both of those are my giftings and passions. I kept showing up to my creative practice, expectant, and everything felt forced. I made some efforts at community-building, but that didn’t seem to do it. I kept praying, separately, for wisdom about beginning a ministry again2. Nothing.
Sometimes it feels like God isn’t answering a prayer. It’s possible he may not be3, but perhaps it feels like he’s not answering a prayer because he already answered it and we just missed it.
One day while I was sharing my complete joy and delight in coaching my son’s baseball team - chatting with my husband about everything I love about it, feeling encouraged after several parents had shared their kind remarks about my coaching - I saw it. THAT was it! Coaching baseball was the answer to my prayer. I was just looking in the wrong places.
Thankfully, he opened my eyes to see it and I didn’t continue forcing something that wasn’t meant to be in another area of my life.
“My ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:9
God’s answer to my prayer turned out to be in an unexpected place AND more joy than I ever could have imagined. Plus, if you had asked me a few months ago if I’d be coaching boys baseball, I would have laughed. That’s what is truly beautiful about this personal response and abundant provision. God sparked a joy in me that I didn’t even know wanted to be re-sparked.
I played softball for what felt like my entire life. Of all the sports I played throughout the years, softball had my heart, and it took up a significant amount of my time, with training, practices, traveling and games. I’m not sure why I suddenly stopped playing when I went to college. But I feel certain I never acknowledged that huge part of my life suddenly ending. Life moves fast and who has time to mourn the ending of a sport? Little did I know, almost 30 years later it would come back into my life in such a fulfilling way.
“…for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” - Matthew 6:8
I absolutely adore my team of 11 boys. It’s been such an incredible blessing to me to be able to coach a sport I love, and now I’ve had the opportunity to watch many of my players improve from not being able to catch a ball to becoming quite good little ball players making impressive plays on the field.
I believe God will answer my prayers in the areas of my life that I continue to pray about - art, ministry, community-building; it’s just not the right time…check out the footnote about Pastor Rick Warren, I love his view on how God answers prayers.
But I just love how incredibly sweet and personal this was. It’s a small example of how he knows what’s better for us than we could ever imagine. Such a sweet blessing from El Roi - the God who sees4.
“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,” - Ephesians 3:20
For Reflection/Journal Prompt:
My answered prayer came in the form of an unexpected delight, an old passion I didn’t even know wanted to be rekindled. This is a small, low-stakes example of how I might have been selling God short, expecting too little from him, by pushing my agendas, my wishes on him. In reality, he knows every personal detail about me, including what will make my heart soar more than what I may think or even know about.
In what areas of your life might you be selling God short, expecting too little from him?
Take some time to search your life and ask God to reveal areas where your prayers have already been answered and you are missing how God answered them. Keep in mind that God’s answers may not always be what we want, but certainly, they are always what is best for us.
Take a moment to think through all of your recent prayer requests. Now, address each prayer with the reminder that God can do ABUNDANTLY MORE than you could ever imagine for that prayer, and remember to hold on loosely to your requests. God may have something better in store. Can you believe that? Can you receive that?
Now, give thanks for his goodness and unending kindness.
“So, my very dear friends, don’t get thrown off course. Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light. There is nothing deceitful in God, nothing two-faced, nothing fickle. He brought us to life using the true Word, showing us off as the crown of all his creatures” - James 1:17-18 MSG
This has to do with our medical and mental health journey with our children, including PANS, attachment disorder from being in too many psych hospitals, ODD, DMDD, GAD, mold toxicity, lyme disease and co-infections, and the lyme disease, mold and neurological health challenges that I have (all of this started from hidden toxic mold that was in the walls of our last home)
I started an art ministry in Atlanta called The Painted Prayer, where women painted intuitively and expressively as we disbanded the lies of the enemy and held tightly to God’s promises
Pastor Rick’s ‘The Four Ways God Answers Prayers’