I’m saying this now, publicly, so I can have accountability. It’s one thing to commit to something in your head. Like, “I’m not going to eat anymore ice cream.” But if no one knows you have committed to not eating ice cream, then you can get out of that right quick. I don’t want to be able to “get out” of this. I mean it and I want to live by it.
We have been listening to a missionary named Otto Koning. (If you have never heard this man, you need to! He is funny, REAL, inspiring and truly a man of God!) In one of his messages, he talks about prayer. He says, in essence, that once a person has assurance from God that the prayer will be answered, stop praying about it and move on to another prayer. This makes sense, if you think about it. You are praying and praying about something and over the course of time, your praying begins to sound like begging. We’ve all been there. We hear ourselves, “Please Lord. PLEASE!”. So I think this is very true. And this is what I’m committing myself not to do.
I have stated before that I really believe the Lord will sell our house. I really do believe it. So why am I still praying about it? I have the assurance that He will sell it. So I am not going to be praying about Him selling it anymore. He knows our desires, He knows our struggles, He knows how much we are paying in gas (!!!) and He knows what is best for us. It’s time I start living out all this “knowledge” of mine.
Now, for any of you who know me, you know I can not stop praying about patience. That would be a disaster! I am determined to learn from this and use this lesson of patience that He has graciously given me. (And yes, I do mean gracious. I can think of so many other situations that He could have me going through to learn patience better, but he chose this one. And I am very, VERY grateful for that!)
I’m not interested in doing foolish things. I have young children to watch doing that! Trusting the Lord and believing on Him is not foolish. Giving up ice cream, now that’s foolish!