Prayer and Plumbing

Timing.

It's all about timing for us, isn't it?

We want what we want NOW and patience is the biggest hurdle for most of our world to overcome.  We wait in lines at the grocery store.  We wait at the doctor's office.  We wait for our meal at a restaurant.   We wait on God.

"God?!.....She's blogging about God?!" {The reader asks with utmost shock.}  "Where is this going?!"

Yes.  It's true.  I've written two whole blogs about other things only to mentally entice you into my web of religious discussion.  Bwa - ha-ha!

Actually, no.  There is no enticement, no manipulation.  This is who I am.  I love the Lord and I often find He reveals Himself to me in very interesting ways.  This particular story is about my plumbing.  Yep.  God and plumbing -  I'd like to share it with you if you'll continue reading along...

...Oh good!  You're still here!  So here's the big thought for today:  What happens if God answers our prayers before we even know we have them?  What if God were to give us resolution before we even realized we needed Him to do so?  I'd like to start with the most powerful example in MY life of this kind of "early protection" and it will explain the plumbing.  I promise.

Growing up, we always opened our Christmas presents on Christmas morning, with the exception of our "out of town" relatives.  When I married my husband, I found out that HIS family opened ALL the presents on Christmas Eve (and all at the same time, might I add.  It wasn't the "one at a time watching what each other got" method that my family had employed.)  Newlyweds: Take note!  You have to find compromise in your lives EVEN with traditions.  In a display of working together, we decided we would open all of his father's gifts on Christmas Eve and save the others for Christmas morning.  (Since his Dad lived out of town, I kind of won this battle anyway.  wink wink

SO - it was on Christmas Eve that we opened our combined gift from his dad - a check!  Money!  Cashola! The green stuff!  I won't be tacky and mention the amount, but it was enough for us to sit down and discuss what we would want to do with it.  We had some fun ideas:  Small trip?  New tv?  Shopping spree?!

Six days later, we spent it.  On plumbing.  Yes, folks, you got it: The second most boring way to spend money next to car repairs, which of course may be arguable to you folks who love your cars.  But, we had a big water leak in the front yard and the lovely gentleman that came out to fix said leak took pretty much all of our Christmas money...and the pouting began.

I was so frustrated - mad is a better word.  I sulked, and oh how I can sulk.  {Amy's mother nods profusely here.}

I was ranting about the whole situation to an incredibly wise friend of mine a few days later and she said... (Pay attention, boys and girls; this is the lesson!!) "Isn't it interesting that if the timing were reversed, you'd be thanking God for providing for you."

Wow.  Marianne.  (That's the name of my incredibly wise friend....figured I should give her the credit.)  I sat there stunned, humbled, and in awe.   Had we had the plumbing leak three days BEFORE Christmas and had the same lovely gentleman out for the expensive repair, we would've been distraught!  We would've struggled to find the money, prayed and tried to trust in God and then, upon opening our Christmas gift, been PRAISING GOD for providing for us!!!  We would've been in awe at His blessing and protection.  Instead, I was whining and sulking.

Does anyone else out there do this?!  Please tell me I'm not the only talented sulker out there in Readerland!!  Aren't we all guilty of celebrating when God answers our prayers in OUR timing, but sulking and pouting if HIS timing is different than ours?

Timing.... how many different times in our lives are we thankful in retrospect that God answered our prayers in His timing instead of ours?  Would we be married to the same people?  Would we have the same jobs, the same friends, the same CHILDREN?!   It is a trust that we all must build when we say "God - may YOUR will be done, not mine."  We have to grab on and hold tight to the understanding that GOD IS IN OUR CORNER!  We may not even yet know we need him to be there, but He is.

So, God traded the order on me.  His timing.  He protected me first before I knew I needed it.  How many times every day does He take care of us - oftentimes when we don't even realize we need His protection?

His timing is ALWAYS best...even if we sulk.

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