Relax girl, God’s got this – if you give it to Him!

Of late, there has been a particular situation in my life which has been somewhat…interesting! I have been praying about it, but being full of the initiative that God has blessed me with, I have also been wondering whether I need to do anything…in truth I have already been fussing, tweaking… But then it occurred to me that literally all I need to do is pray, and make sure I am praying adequately about the situation – then I can literally leave it in God’s hands, and trust that He will direct the situation as He sees fit.

This reminds me of a comparable situation years ago when I definitely did not leave the matter in God’s hands, but rather took the matter on into my own much smaller hands.  After so many years I have finally understood that that was my mistake.

Fun and games?
When it comes to various situations in our lives, there might be fun and games in that we do not know how to act, or respond, we do not know whether or not we are to reach out, but reflecting on this previous situation made me realise that, as far as possible, all the fun and games should happen in prayer.   I can pour out my heart to God about everything I’m feeling whether it is positive or negative, I can ask for God’s direction in knowing how to act or not, I can specifically ask God to work in the situation.

Radical?
You know, I am a Christian who talks a lot about the power of prayer.  None of this should be new or radical to me! This makes me realise that many of my prayers concern things which are completely out of my control, such as protection upon someone, OR things which are about my own actions, such as whether or not to apply for a particular job. And this situation is markedly different from either of those, which is why I have been feeling a little stumped.

So it has been quite amazing, actually, to realise I can simply pray, make sure that I am praying hard enough and leave it at that!!!
Actually, there is another facet to this: (and before I talk about that facet I am going to share a brief testimony: Yesterday, I had quite a serious fall. The glass screen on my expensive mobile phone (which was given as a gift) shattered, and now the touch screen is not lighting up at all. The thing still rings, and notifications still come in but I have discovered that everything is utterly dependent on that touch screen, so the whole phone is now essentially useless, unless I get it repaired. I cannot even turn off alarms that I have previously set, or even turn off the mobile phone altogether, so I was a little tortured this morning as the alarm just kept going off. I am just sharing these details about the phone to let you know how serious the fall was. I landed awkwardly on my arms and hands, and a tendon between my little finger of my right hand and the next finger was numb and my left hand was also feeling sore and I was just feeling bruised altogether. I was a little worried about my hands because I do so much typing. Well the testimony is this: a day and a half later I am generally feeling back to normal, even though my phone is still very dead! I was just observing my hands as they were typing away, and just feeling so grateful! Honestly, I could have easily broken a bone, but everything appears to be fine. Thank You so much Lord!  So as I fell I started off yelping, but then I ended up sitting there, loudly thanking God, in broad daylight.  You know what?  Even if I had broken a bone, I would still have been thanking God, but I might not have been typing this out today!!!
So once again I thank You Lord, and I thank You for Your protection upon me!
Oh also, additionally, I was feeling altogether sorry for myself yesterday, because of the fall, and because a cold I had been trying to stave off had finally descended. So I had pretty much made up my mind not to go to work today. (Also all my contacts have been saved to phone memory, rather than to my SIM, so I had no way of contacting my colleagues… or anyone else…except it turned out that I had accidentally added one of my own phone numbers to my work Whatsapp group a few months ago…Back then, I removed it from the group pretty much immediately. However, that work  Whatsapp group still showed up on the Whatsapp of another old mobile phone that previously held the SIM card of the number I accidentally added to the group chat which I have  I swapped my SIM into – so that was the only only way I was able to get in touch with one of my work colleagues!  Because WhatsApp lives on the handset itself, rather than the SIM.)  So thinking I was not going to go to work in the morning, I let myself write a post last night even later than normal, and I ended up having such a short amount of sleep I am embarrassed to type out how short it was! But I had also told myself: “I’ll see how I feel in the morning”. So morning came, and to my surprise I was feeling a lot better. The cold was still there, I am sniffling as I write this, but it did not weigh me down, and I was feeling a lot less sore about the fall. So yep, I dragged myself into work, and to the surprise of “Yesterday’s Me” Today’s Me managed to do a full day of work – plus an hour over! And considering how little sleep I had overnight I should be shattered right now – I was dozing on the bus back home.  By God’s grace, I will make sure I get at least my eight hours tonight!!! Thank You, Thank You, Thank You Lord!!!)

OK, so the additional facet to this prayer thing is this: I believe that what I am praying for is objectively what God has indicated is good and right.  So that is why there has been an urgency in my heart to make it all happen, because I feel that this is actually directed by God. Sometimes you pray, and you are asking God – is this right?! (ooh, I have just felt a few twinges in the tendons in my right hand that I was speaking of!!!)  But in this case, I believe that this is actually from God, which is why my attitude has been “Let’s make this happen!”  How amazing to realise that even in this case, perhaps especially in cases such as these, I don’t need to “make it happen”, I can pray and trust it to God completely!!!

But now you are wanting to know what happened in that other case?  Well once again, I felt as if God had indicated something. However, there were a few crucial differences. I was much younger back then, and I was much younger in my prayer life. So I was praying about the situation, but not directly. And the situation was frustrating me! What I now recognise that I should have done is that I should have gone to God Himself with my frustrations, conducted all the “fun and games” exclusively between Him and me in terms of pouring out my heart, expressing my confusion etc. Unfortunately, that is not what I did. Rather what I did was that I took matters into my own hands. If I am honest, there was an element of “outwitting God” in the thing, which was just as stupid as it sounds! You know, I believe that it largely all turned out how God would have wished it. However, I could have made my own life so much easier if I had just truly given it to God!

So it is literally within just the last few days that I have finally brought my heart before God, and repented of deliberately running ahead before Him regarding that incident from so long ago. And I felt a peace in my heart that God has released me from my mistake. You know, for all these years I have been justifying myself that “I did not do anything wrong”, because everything worked out and God has even blessed me abundantly, as a result of that incident (I believe). But now I have finally accepted to myself that that is what I should have done. I have finally humbled myself in obedience to God, and I hope that that is that matter finally and conclusively done and dusted!

Moving forward, I have definitely learned my lesson! You know what, as I am typing this, I am thinking that God in His mercy could actually have planted that previous situation, and the inevitability of my getting it wrong then, all those years ago specifically to prepare me for this current situation, so that by His grace I will definitely take it to Him this time!