A few years back while driving with my friend, he played a song that tugged on my memory strings. I knew I had heard it before. As I began to listen to the lyrics, I suddenly found myself singing every lyric by memory. I recognized the song as one I had heard many times before as a kid.
The lyrics went like this:
"Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers
Remember when you're talkin' to the man upstairs
That just because he doesn't answer, doesn't mean he don't care.
Some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers."
(Unanswered Prayers-Garth Brooks)
Yes. I had totally heard this song before.
As I sang each lyric I realized that singing it as a child, I had no idea what the meaning of this chorus was. Even as I sung in that day in my friends car in my early twenties, I would still debate if I fully knew that depth of those words. But now, as I reminisce on those lyrics in my late twenties, I would say that I finally semi understand what they are saying.
Life didn't come easy to me growing up. And some years, it seems as though it was getting worse. I found myself often times begging for the Lord to have mercy on me.
"Please Lord, can there just be a season of rest for my life. Does it ALWAYS have to be this hard?"
I can recall countless conversations like this I had with the Lord.
A few years back I, in my anger and frustration, decided to take life into my own hands and found myself on a path of rebellion. Where I allowed myself to "experience life" the way that I believed it should be. I mean, if He couldn't get it right, I would just have to do it myself, right?
Wrong. OH...haha...so wrong.
At the end of that year and a half tyrant rebellion, I found myself before the Lord saying the same thing. "Lord, does it ALWAYS have to be this hard?" Only this time, it was my own doing. I was bruised and broken. I had been pushed to the edge of what I could handle and found myself doing everything I could to just breath. And still, after trying it on my own, nothing was going the way that I thought it should. I was twenty seven, family was still broken, I was still in pain from my cancer, I was still unmarried with no children and no perspectives, I still was unhappy in my career, and a WHOLE lot more baggage.
When I think about these lyrics I can not help but be reminded of the grace of God. That his timing is perfect and that mine, well mine is not.
In that year of trying to do things on my own, all I did was postpone what I wanted so badly. By shutting out the voice of the Lord in my life, I was ultimately shutting his will out of my life as well. I was running away from it, rather than to it. The desires of my heart were now further away from where I was.
And it was painful. Oh, was it painful.
And it was more painful to think of the fact that in that time, the things I experienced and allowed myself to do was exactly what the Lord was trying to protect me from. There are so many things, people, places during that time that I look back with the "what if" in the forefront of my mind. No, not the "what if" of "man, that could have been awesome." but the "what if" of...."what if that had been my forever?!", "what if I had married that person?!", "what if I had stayed there?!". But those prayers, those things I had begged God for, and decided that I was going to try and find on my own, those unanswered prayers...Those are the greatest gifts he could have EVER given me.
And I am thankful for the following:
"Being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus" -Philippians 1:6
I am so glad that the Lord said, "ok Amanda, are you over this so we can move on?" How great is his mercy. It is also amazing to me that the moment I decided to say "yes" to the Lord, that things began to change. Instantly. New job, new friendship, new love, back in school, WORTH, LOVE, GRACE, FOCUS, and PASSION. All of these restored to me. I know as years go by, there will be more and more blessing to come. I know there will be still be the struggle of the "when", but I now know, from experience, that the Lord is faithful, and his timing is perfect. Again, mine is not. So I don't take those unanswered prayers as Him forgetting about me, but him loving me.
I am SO glad (SO GLAD) that the Lord was and is not done with me and that he who began a good work in me will carry it out to completion. That means the desires of my heart and all the endeavors my future holds. I have seen his faithfulness to this point and tomorrow will be no different. Waiting for the things of the Lord has now become a joy to me because I have new perspective.
What are you waiting for? Take time to pray through it, consider it, and break it apart. Could there be reasons that you do not have it yet? Is there anything in your life that YOU need to change in order for God's will to move forward? And what can you do in this season of waiting to prepare yourself for when the Lord does bring that, whatever it is, to your life?
The future is yours, written by him, and lived out together.
The best things in life are worth the wait. Don't ruin a good thing, but rushing a good thing.
He is not done with you.
