This photo was taken before the fire had consumed 100 acres.
When it comes to the rain, I guess I remain ever the skeptic. I mean, when have *my* prayers really amounted to much? Ah….perhaps in that simple statement we have the issue here… Have I given up believing that praying will make a difference? Did I *ever* believe they mattered? I mean, have I *ever* believed like Daniel believes? Do I doubt that prayer matters at all, at least *mine*? It comes back to the fact that I don’t often pray like Daniel does…where I then get off my behind and go do something that shows that I anticipate that God will answer.
True confessions.
I simply have to share something with you. I have a little thing called “Desktop Weather” that is tied in to Weather.com. This is what greeted me this morning after I hauled all my stuff back out on to the deck and then fired up my laptop–THIS is the forecast for the next few days:
Last night, Daniel changed his prayer to account for temperature…what we actually will have remains to be seen, but my Desktop Weather thingummie had the following message for me today. We are in the foothills…
I wonder about the faith that can move mountains. It boggles my mind. I am really wrestling with this prayer thing, in fact. I have long been on a quest to understand prayer more. I seem to have breakthroughs and then things go south. The last time I had a “crisis of belief” I studied a book diligently to help me understand. I wrote the author and asked her questions to clarify…and I think something in me got so disheartened that my cynicism was given birth during that time.
Maybe God is now calling me to set aside the studying about it…and to learn from a child.
Maybe instead of analyzing all of it over and over again, I should just follow Daniel’s example in my praying and in my doing.
(Are you tired of witnessing my grappling with this? Why is it so hard for me to grasp this kind of faith?)
If my brother is telling it right you should have quite the rain shower going on right about now (or did about a half an hour ago…)I think one of the reasons faith like Daniels is so hard to grasp is because it is so unusual. We are all jaded and cynical and analytical about prayer and miracles and faith in general. We over think and over process and decide to contribute answered prayer to things other than Gods intervention in our lives. I don’t think you are alone in this struggle – most of us don’t have the blessing of living with someone with faith like Daniels though to show us a different way.
Heidi, What a beautiful reminder of what “faith of a child” is. I hope to pray more like Daniel when I grow up. I’m new to Thin Within, just a few weeks into the first workbook. As I lose that first “beginner’s” enthusiasm and start into the real heart-change stuff, I wonder if I, too, genuinely want to be healed or if I just want to look good on the outside. Thank you for posting this story–it has been an encouragement ( a convicting one!)Blessings!