When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives….(James 4:3).
I have found myself lifting up these prayers to God recently, “Lord, provide. Lord, do this for me. Lord, why didn’t you do that?” The heart behind all my asking is very much being motivated by fear. Fear that something bad might happen. Fear that the bottom might fall out, or that the Lord will somehow let us go without what we need.
I don’t know why i allow my thoughts to go there from time to time. Thinking that God somehow won’t come through for us. Doubting His lead and His hand. The truth is I just can’t see how it’s going to work out in our favor, so I grow discouraged. I become discontent with what He has provided because it doesn’t completely take all the pressure off.
But friend, as I am learning, sometimes that pressure has to stay because God is squeezing something out. He’s taking us deeper. He’s molding us further and the pressure is really a gift and in the end, it’s just a mirage too. It’s not really real. Because fear makes up things, it tells us all the bad that could happen. Fear makes us think that God isn’t sufficient, so instead of trusting in today, we worry deeply about tomorrow. There’s not enough food at the table, or so we think, so we go running to fill our stomachs once again elsewhere.
Friend, maybe this season has felt hard, because it’s supposed to. It’s supposed to crush things out of you to bring you to a deeper place of freedom, not sink you into deeper captivity. After all, sometimes, before God can lift us up, He has to empty our hands before we take His. That’s where I’m at today, emptying my hands so that God can grab them both and lift me up as I watch Him provide for me and my loved ones today.
Lord, I am afraid, forgive me. I don’t want to be. I want to be more like you. Grow me up in your love. Shower me with your new morning mercies, each day, I pray, in Jesus name, Amen.
Heather Quiroz 