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Day 37 - 150 Day Challenge - The Desires of Your Heart
- Jul 21, 2009 at 4:43 PM
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- Comments (9) Total Views (265) Everyone can see this journal post.
No, you didn't miss a post, I skipped day 36. I was behind a day and read both 36 and 37 this morning and chapter 37 hit my heart so strongly that I just had to move to it for my post today. This is another one of my favorite Psalms, it is especially meaningful to me today because I have been struggling the last few days with indecision and despondency. I am always encouraged to find the answers to my questions and quandaries right in The Word when I need them.
Verses four and five tell me to delight and commit and that my plans will succeed; I will be given that which my heart desires. Further on it cautions in verse seven that I should be still, wait patiently and not fret. It is all mapped out right there, you see; another chance for me to understand that God is God and I am not.
I was slightly dismayed recently with the acrimony that I encountered when I approached a fellow Christian and told her that I felt her pain when I came across something she had written. I knew a few things about her past because she had shared them with me. I felt strongly that God was calling me to pray for her because she was wounded. She is very outspoken against certain groups of people and I felt that she had a block in her life when it came to feeling compassion for these groups of people. My prayers for her were sincere and from the heart and yet I was rebuffed. I felt very sad about this because she cut off communication with me completely so there was no way for me to even tell her that I had truly offered prayer to her through the grace of God.
I felt sorrow for this situation and asked God to help me to understand. Maybe I wasn't hearing the Lord plainly enough. Maybe I had some blinders on myself that I needed to take off. I try to see if God is calling for me to make a change in my life whenever I have times of turmoil come up. I try not to just assume that the person with whom I am having a problem is wrong just because I feel strongly that I am right. There is always a chance that I am the one who needs to ameliorate her attitude.
Then this morning I read this Psalm and it was if God were speaking to me directly. I could clearly see that I was to keep doing what I have been called to do. When he calls on me to pray for someone, I am to pray. If they disaprove of my prayer, I am to pray anyway. To do anything less would, for me, be a sin.
© KDV 2009
Comments:
This was a good one. LOVE IT, LOVE IT!!! Thank you!
Great journal, Kim. The good thing about prayer is that no matter who you're praying for, you're talking to God, not to that person. And He's always listening. You rock, sweetie.
I have had a similar impulse to pray over this woman's pain. Which is saying something, because I'm a Unitarian! I know that she causes pain to you as a person and pain to you as a Christian. Her message is hurtful and alienating, and it must be awful to see something that brings such light into your life be turned into something so fraught. When I read her writings, black and red start to swirl through my head and I hear metal grinding against metal. You know that this is not the point of Christianity, and it pains you that anyone who reads her message might think that it is. Aside from a word, you don't have anything in common!
Kim, you have just smacked me in the face about why I feel the way I feel this week. If I prayed it would be for this other person (in my life) to see how her words sting. ~It doesn't matter that the other person is unaware, what matters is our own actions, our own desires of heart.
Kim, you are a wonderful example of what a truly good person is all about. Don't let her hatred bring you down. She will stop when she's ready and that may be never. The fact that you are willing to pray for her, and actually want to is just wonderful. Let that be enough.
"Rejection is God's protection," right?
Great message :-)
You have such a kind heart. More people should be like you--strong, compassionate and thoughtful in every sense.
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I learn from the example you set. Keep teaching. Don't let that one person drag you down and steal your strength. I heart you, Kimmer.
- ErikaRobin
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