If It's Repeated, It's Important

In his sermons, our pastor, Gary, always says, "If it's repeated, it's important!" Whether it's in the Bible or in your life, if something keeps coming up, you should at least stop and think about it. It's probably God trying to get your attention.

A few months ago, I read an article in Today's Christian Woman about God's answers to prayer. It involved two friends and an elusive blueberry patch. Long article short, it said that God ALWAYS answers prayers; it's just that sometimes the answer is no.

Now I've been thinking about that ever since I read that article. Every time I pray, I think to myself, "Now, Rachel---the answer could be no." I'm not sure if I'm preparing myself just in case, or if I'm trying to tell God I understand. Either way, I've been thinking that with just about every prayer. Thinking, "Well, why would he say no to THIS? He loves me, right?" Then I have to rethink that and remember that He could have lots of reasons for saying no.

Well, I went to a MOPS conference on Saturday, and they had several speakers in a live "simulcast" from Denver. Guess who one of the speakers was? The woman who wrote that article. How did I know? She told the story about the blueberry patch. I didn't remember her name from the article, but I sure know it now: Margaret Feinberg. Apparently a great up-and-coming author who's written a book called "The Sacred Echo." She talked about how when things are repeated, they're important, and then she told the blueberry patch story.

I almost went slack-jawed there in the audience. This was something I'd been thinking about DAILY since reading her article (that I didn't know was hers). Then she said something interesting. She said sometimes, our response to God puts a line between us and Him. Sometimes a prayer isn't answered, so we stop praying for that thing. Someone we loved wasn't healed when we prayed for healing. Someone we loved died even though we prayed so hard for a miracle to happen. So we stop praying for miracles. We assume God can't or won't do those things.

I feel like I want to split this blog into two branches right here:

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Branch 1:
Is my saying, "The answer might be no," to God putting a line between me and Him? Does he see that as a sign of disbelief? I can't even tell you if it's a sign of disbelief myself. I just kind of think it as I pray. Am I acknowledging to God, "Look, I know this could go either way, but this is the way I'm praying for it to happen," or am I saying, "This is what I'm praying for, but you probably won't do it the way I ask for it, so I'm going to reserve a little bit of the faith that I WOULD have prayed with otherwise."

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Branch 2:
Sometimes we just don't pray for the right things. If someone I love is ill and I pray for healing, if it doesn't happen, I'm going to be devastated. I'm going to think my prayers didn't work. I'm going to think God doesn't listen. But you know what? He's God. Maybe that wasn't what he had planned. Who am I to tell the Creator of the universe, "You should do things MY way because I have the faith of a mustard seed. The Bible says so!" Nope. Doesn't work that way. So perhaps if you pray for the right things, the answer will never be "no."

Example: Someone I love is ill. Instead of praying JUST for healing (which is still probably a good thing to pray for), I pray for God's will to be done first and foremost. THEN I pray for a way to cope with whatever His will is. That way, if it doesn't work out the way I prefer, God's still going to catch me. I've still got a net. I'm pretty sure God hands out coping skills like candy, considering His good and perfect will is so far above what we can see and comprehend. He's got the big picture and we don't. Life would be far more disappointing if God wasn't generous with the heart-healing.

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So that's what I've been thinking about. I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to be pondering this, since it's been very clearly stuck under my nose multiple times. If it's repeated, it's important! Pastor Gary would be so proud.