Playing in the Rough

               Odd that I should choose a golfing metaphor, like playing in the rough,  to describe my life in recent months—hence the lack of posts.  Pain while sitting plays a part in my infrequent visits to the lovethatpersists part of me.  But I’ll dust off these keys and share what I believe was “inspired prayer” during the weekly prayer and share meeting I attend this morning.

               I cannot remember a meeting over at least 12 years now when as much frustration and emotion were expressed among the seven of us gathered.  The latest chapter in a very serious local situation in Ferguson, blown out of proportion around the world at this point, was part of what was driving the emotion.  But the church where we meet has had a few unusual and traumatic situations of its own the last 4 or 5 years, years that have wearied the majority of the group who attend the church.

                 Having managed to share our prayer concerns for the lists we make each week, we turned to music and sang a few songs, giving God a chance to put some better thoughts and insights in our minds.  Romans 12 begins by encouraging all of us to “not be conformed to this world” but to allow God to “renew our minds.”  After singing a few songs, we have an open time of prayer.  Ladies can pray silently or pray out loud taking advantage of an opportunity—too rare, I fear—to pray with other Christians.  I  usually begin after a minute or two with no advance planning about what I will say.

               Today was especially interesting to me at what came out of my mouth.  A few places in the Bible God issues some questions at significant times, times where discouragement and frustration may be in the air.  Job has been through every possible misery, losing his family, his possessions, his health and enduring his friends’ “theories” of how this had happened.  Then the Lord has His say, revealing His omnipotence:  “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?” (Job 38:4).  And after setting Job straight, Job rightly takes a more humble place before God and finds himself blessed twice as much as he was before.     

               Another time of questioning in Isaiah might be more familiar.  Israel is in need of God’s comforting good news.  Again, God comes with questions.  “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God, the Lord, The Creator of the ends of the earth neither faints or grows weary” (40:28).  The promise then is given: “Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength.  They shall mount up with wings as eagles” (40:31).

               Perhaps the most pressing of all the questions is what Jesus asks Martha at her brother Lazarus’s tomb, a tomb he has been in for four long days.  “Did I not say to you that if you would believe (in Me being the resurrection and the life) you would see the glory of God?” (John 11:40).  Jesus seems to be asking a lot of this grieving, weary sister.  But she is there with Him, waiting when her brother walks, wrappings and all, out of the tomb—alive.

               I think this morning during prayer time when God brought these questions to my mind, He was reminding me and any who would listen that things can look bad before they change, before that spoken promise of strength or resurrection comes true.  A lot of people who accomplish amazing things point to just three short words to remember:  Don’t Give Up.  God just wanted to remind me.