It's Ok

Have you ever seen the sun reflected off the underside of pine needles? Such small things. Small things that remind you God is here.  

I used to struggle With the thought that God loves me. Having learned that I must work for God's approval, I tried until I realized that I would never reach the standard that was required of me.  It took me the better part of my life to learn that God holds no rules over me.  I am free to choose as I will.  I have learned some of my choices have dire consequences and that most decisions are not a matter of right and wrong but rather an opportunity to learn what I prefer.  

If you are one who is trying to decide what is best for you and have been begging God to show you but there is no answer, perhaps he is trying to tell you that it's ok to choose as you will, to choose what you would prefer. If your decision does not work out, then you have learned something about yourself. You have learned one thing you don't like and are more knowledgeable about making a better choice next time. Perhaps you don't know the choices to make because you don't know yourself.  And if you don't know yourself,  how could you know which choice is best for you?  Therefore, I encourage you to quit praying and start deciding. You'll figure things out in no time. 

Light

That night I lay on the floor in my room, crying from the aggravation of the pain. I wanted some kind of relief. A blue towel on navy blue carpet was all I could see. My nose pressed against the rough material. The towel needed to be washed. I didn't know what to pray or what to say. Every prayer technique I had ever learned seemed so worthless at times like this.

"I don't even know what to say," I moaned.

I had tried praying all my life, and few were the times that I had ever had confidence that I would get an answer. But then a voice came to me and said, "Ask me for my promise. Ask me to give it to you."

Promise? Oh. I remembered...Behold, I will do a new thing. Now will I do it; shall ye not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The promise that had come to me earlier, he wanted me to ask him to give it to me. Asking God for a promise he had already given me didn't make any sense. Then he said,

"I am teaching you how to pray. Ask me for my promise."

And so I did.

Then he told me, "Get up and get something to eat."

In a few minutes I returned to my room with a plate of cold meat, cheese, and grapes. I ate as one who had been fasting, completely enjoying each morsel. In my heart now was a certainty that God would answer. He burned a foreign truth into my heart that night: When you speak, I hear. You have my heart. Your words are the command that makes resistance die, that makes good spring forth; for as my child, you have the same power as my Son. That's why he died.

That night, I got off the floor, fed myself and took rest as the daughter of God, confident that he would answer every prayer I prayed. I would speak now as his daughter instead of speaking to convince him that he should answer my prayer. I had his heart. I was my Daddy's girl.