lent 23 day 15

 It doesnt always have to be about something.


I'm the mother of three young adult men. They are 17, 20 and 21 and two of the three of them are now away from home.  When they were little we used to have great chats about all sorts of things but over recent years the conversation has dwindled to mostly monosyllabic grunting ( them) and pointed questioning ( me).  The eldest is thankfully starting to emerge from adolescence and is sometimes now quite able to have a ' chat'.   The other two ....... blood from stones comes to mind :)

The other day when I went out on my long walk my aim was to spend the whole time praying for Suzy.  ( see day 10 blog for more info)  I set off full of zeal and on deserted country roads started praying out loud about the miracles I wanted Jesus to do.  I prayed in tongues.  I visualised a hospital bed and what I wanted to see happen there.  I was happily praying away when God said '  Get out of the way'.   Just like that.   No please.  No polite niceties.  Just ' Get out of the way'.   And in that instant I understood that something about my praying was actually unhelpful  - and I was pretty shocked.   How can praying for anyone be the wrong thing to do??  Surely God wants us to pray? He has asked us to pray.  Especially for the sick.   But the message was so clear that I had to shut up and listen and think

It was actually really hard to not pray for a situation which I knew was utterly desperate.  Suzy was haemorrhaging, had sepsis and her husband had been called in to be with her.  It was as bad as it could possibly be.  She doesn't know Jesus.  She was at death's door.  So NOT praying for her seemed..... well, just wrong.   But as I stopped to ponder I understood that God wasn't cross with me.  I wasn't doing anything wrong per se - it was just that my prayers weren't adding anything to the situation.  Lots of people were praying and my prayers were part of a big pile of prayers.  Those prayers had all been heard and God was already acting in response to them.   He didn't need me to tell Him what to do or how to do it.    What is more, I was standing in the gap for Suzy and her husband who don't know Jesus.  But God showed me that in order for Him to work HE needed to be in the gap.  I needed to stand aside and let God do His thing.  It was between Jesus and Suzy.  God didnt require Caz as intermediary.😀

I sort of 'saw' all of this as soon as I heard Him say ' Get out of the way'.   So I said sorry for getting in the way and carried on walking.  I realised that Jesus had come beside me and was holding my hand.  Which was nice.   And then He said '  It doesnt have to be about anything you know?'   and I realised 
that in the same way that  I long to have a chat with my boys and just hang out with them and find out their news, so God likes to spend time with me without me having a ' to do' list for Him.  Prayer is so often ' about stuff'.  And thats OK.  God wants us to talk to Him about the stuff that's on our minds.  But He also just wants us to BE with Him.  To invite Him out on a walk, or to the cinema, or to watch telly or a sunset or to sit in the garden with Him.  Trusting that even if we don't mention in thought or words the people and situations which are on our hearts, He knows and He is on the case anyway.

I purposely didn't pray for Suzy for the rest of the day.  I trusted that God was doing whatever He needed to do for her.  Yesterday morning I got a message from her husband to say that she had battled through a ' truly terrible day' , but that her internal bleeding had stopped and her signs were starting to improve.   Imagine that!  God did stuff without my help!!  😁   40 years a Christian and I still feel like such a beginner.

You know perfectly well that I am not telling you all to stop praying 😊  ( and thank you so much to everyone who has been praying for Suzy )  But maybe its good every now and again to take stock and check that in our praying we haven't become more Martha than Mary.  

May none of us ever get in the way of what God wants to do. 


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