Tuesday, May 11, 2010

I had a realization while driving to work in Columbia one day last week. I have some of my best realizations and thoughts on that drive, even when listening to Van Halen or Bon Jovi and potentially ear-splitting volume. Hey, you never know when inspiration will strike!

But I had thoughts running amuck in my old noggin’ and one of them just seemed so simple. If it was a snake it’d have bit me! I was thinking about prayer and that age old question of why God answers some prayers and not others. I pray about a lot of things daily, but I admit I feel guilty about some of my prayers. Guilty because they seem so small and trivial and I should be praying about bigger things. Praying for others and not myself so much. Thinking about the bigger picture of life instead of just wanting my tires to last a few more months or something like that.

As I thought about all of this, I was focusing in one specific thing I prayed about a few months back. It was, on the surface, a very small thing. Just something that was driving me crazy and seemed silly to pray about, but I wasn’t sure what else to do at that point. I’d tried a lot of things on my own and even just trying for acceptance wasn’t working. (Any of this sound familiar?)

But this teeny, tiny, trivial thing I prayed about and asked God to deal with, He did. He dealt with it and it’s not an issue for me anymore.

Thinking about all of that reminded me that just because something seems small and insignificant it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pray about it. You definitely should!! If it means enough to you that it sticks in your brain and in your craw (what the heck is a craw anyway?? I know what a crow is…), then you should pray about it. And with those thoughts, it reminded me that if God listens and is willing to answer our prayers about the seemingly silliest thing, why on earth would we doubt that He is listening to our bigger prayers and why would be doubt that He is working on things and going to answer our prayers???

Yeah. Such a totally simple and elementary revelation, but it took a while for me to remember that. So now when I’m driving every day, that thought pops into my head (I start each day’s drive to Columbia with some prayer time) and I remind myself that God is working in my life (and yours!). We just don’t always realize it and for that big stuff, well, it might take Him a little while longer than we’d like.