The Grand Unfolding

 Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD.  And Hezekiah prayed to the LORD…  Isaiah 37. 14

Not telling God an acceptable solution, or determining a particular answer, but spreading it before Him and seeking God in this.

When we lay it out all the pieces before the LORD, when we seek Him, God opens not just our eyes to opportunities that were not yet on our radar, He opens our hearts to His.  Not just “this is the way,” but walk with Me.  And in the walking, God unfolds something much larger.

When I began to write this posting, I had something very different in mind.  Great story, but I kept tripping up on it.  It just didn’t work.  My point felt forced. 

I scratched out what I thought, opened not just a new blank page to start over, but I opened my heart and listened.  You know, the parts of praying we all too often forget:  listening and responding.

Hezekiah put into words his despair, fear and worries about his distressing situation to the LORD.  God even worked on Hezekiah’s heart as he prayed.  By the end of his prayer, the only particular thing he asked was that God would be glorified “…that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You alone are the LORD.”  Isaiah 37. 20

That kind of praying begins to align our hearts with His.  And sometimes when it all plays out, that even we would know that above all else, He is God and we are not.  His glory does that.

It does not mean sit back, do nothing, let God do all the heavy lifting, and lay something on the doorstep like an Amazon order.  But follow Me into this.

Because you have prayed to Me…. Isaiah 37. 21 Everything is different now.  No matter the outcome.

How much do we miss in our experience of praying because we are seeking specific answers, and not necessarily God Himself?

In one season in our lives, when Bill was looking for work, as the weeks became months, our prayers radically changed from trying to find the right answer to seeking God in the process. We began to pray differently and to trust Him more.

 And that made all the difference in how we saw God, how we navigated our circumstances, how we saw others, and how we saw ourselves.  And how we saw His fingerprints all over what seemed like a million interviews, and rejections, and finally, a surprise at the end of that chapter, something we would not have even considered had we determined our own path.

God tweaked our hearts.  We were totally surprised by how He revealed Himself.  And continued to be blessed even in what we did not expect, even in unlikely places.  God never works in singular outcomes. We still experience new layers of His redeeming, now twenty years ago, paths we could not have ever imagined.

In the midst of that long, long year, I heard a sermon on the Minor Prophets in which the pastor’s “practical application” was, When you get to the end of this, you will have a story of God’s faithfulness.

Oh wow.  I wrote down those words on an index card as a promise and reminder of God’s redeeming.  The next morning, our twelve-year-old daughter came down to breakfast.  She hesitated by the card as she read it.  What a witness those words will be to her young heart, I thought.

She turned to me and said, “But Mom, that’s not true.  Every day is a story of God’s faithfulness.”

I clung to those words through that very hard season.  After all these years, I can still hear her voice, saying those words.

Praying helps us to understand that, no matter if we ever see an outcome, He is with us. His narrative is so much bigger than we can even wrap our prayers around.

Prayer is about our relationship with Him, not just seeing His hand, but seeking Him.

Hear, O LORD, when I cry aloud, be gracious to me and answer me!  You have said, “Seek My face.”  My heart says to you, “Your face do I seek.”  Psalm 27. 7-8