God has been an…

God has been answering prayers lately.

 

We don’t always see how He is going to answer, and sometimes it is unexpected and painful.  But oh, is He good. God is so good.  

 

I’ve likened this period in my life to a garden.  I have a garden in my spirit.  God is starving things, He is letting plants dry up in my life.  Once they are dead, it is easier to pull them from the ground, uproot them.  Sometimes God asks us to help this “drying and dying” season.  We have to help Him starve certain things.  If we keep “feeding and watering” those things in our lives that are sin areas, then they will keep growing, the roots will go deeper and deeper.  But there is hope.  Starve it, get it out of there!  God will swoop in and help when we are weak. Then He can pull all the dead things away, He can clean up the garden.  He can start stirring the soil, planting new vision, new ideas, new dreams.  He can plant new hope, new compassion, new peace, new faith.  SO much room for so many things, when we let HIM take away the dead, the broken, the hurt, the sinful desires of our flesh.  And then there’s so much room for Him!  

 

It hurts.  It’s painful.  So painful.  God doesn’t promise us that we will live a pain-free life.  He never said following Him would be the easy path.  No way.  It means beating our bodies into submission, it means taking every thought captive, it means dying to what WE want out of life and surrendering ALL of it to Him.  It means trusting in Him when friends die, it means trusting in Him when we lose our jobs, it means letting him take away a man (or woman) we love…the great exchange, we give everything, because Jesus gave everything first.  He died there on the cross for a hundred generations, He died for the Church across the world, He died for YOU and your sin, He died for me even though He knew I was a nobody, a foolish wreck of a girl who couldn’t get out of bed in the morning because depression had beaten me down so far that I thought I could never see the sun shine again.

 

But I’m free!  I’m free from chains I never thought I would be free from, I’m healed from things I never thought I would ever be healed from.  I want to shout it, I want to dance in the streets, from the JOY in my heart that is pouring out of a thankful heart!  

 

You might be the craziest, lowest of the low, nobody, and Jesus would reach out His hand and pick you up and free you.  The world pretends like it’s offering something so nice, but in the end, it’s ashes.  

 

Thank the Lord that He answers prayer!