Dig Deeper

1.     What is one prayer you have been lifting up for a long time but have not seen the answer your heart longs for? 

To say that I have lifted up a certain prayer for a long time … I would consider that false. I will have something on my heart forever, but do I continue to pray about it? I doubt it. I don’t pray well. Even after all of this. I am a horrible prayer person.

I wrote a drama. I considered it dialogue. Then someone called it a prayer sequence and I was flabbergasted. Was it? Let’s see, someone talks to God and God answers. Oh my goodness! I guess it was! So if I have these mini dialogues within my head … could they be prayer as well?

Yes, I’m feeling a call to do something … more? Different? I’m uncertain. And after the last several years, I’m more confused than ever. Borderline feeling crazy. And I’m not getting a direct answer. And I’m not getting direction from anywhere. The end result has been I’m less focused than ever. I feel like this won’t change.

But if I were to try consistent prayer over time out … would I see a difference? Is that what’s missing from the equation?

What have you learned through this process of consistent prayer over time?

I have learned that I need to work more on consistent prayer over time.

When do I tend to quit or give up instead of endure?

When I don’t get any support or help. When no one is with me. When I get negatives responses each way I turn. When it seems like nothing I do helps or brings forth change. When my needs or wants are not considered. When I’m told what to do, but not involved. I cease to care and slowly stop doing what I was doing.

What needs to change in my actions or attitudes so I can be sure I will endure in a way that honors God the next time I hit this wall?

I have to stop worrying about ME. It’s not about ME. The world does not revolve around ME. What I do, I should do for God and God alone and things would be right if nothing else. If I do everything with God in mind, there may be suffering, but it will be for His purposes and He rewards His s servants after this lifetime. I need to worry about what God thinks and forget what others think.

Who can encourage me and help me in my training in this area of my life?

I have discovered that I need a mentor. I don’t know where to find one. One has been suggested to me … But I’m not feeling it. I’m seriously thinking I need a match.com but for pairing Christian mentors with students … Because it would help enormously if that person were a little like me …

Describe a time when you faced deep loneliness (remember, you can be lonely even when people are around you). 

Last few years? I feel like I have been abandoned. Left behind. Everyone is busy with their jobs. And I’m not. Everyone has something “important” to do, but I don’t. This is wrong thinking. I know this. But everyone is too busy. So I fill my time up with little things. I’d rather be doing big things.

I don’t want to go to a class and sit and listen for an hour. I don’t want to go to church and sit and listen for 2 hours. I want to have relationships with people. Other people seem to have appointments with people. Have to be scheduled in. I’m through making appointments to be with people.

How did God use this experience to draw near to you and to draw you closer to him?

I keep telling myself that God is showing me that I cannot rely on people, but I can rely on Him. He wants to show me that He is the one and only and He is the only one I need to focus on. When everyone and everything else is gone, He will still be there. But either I haven’t learned the lesson yet, or I titled the lesson wrong.

Jenny Garth said, after divorcing Jim Carey, she made a list of all the things he did wrong and then substituted her name for his. So if she said “Jim never pays attention to me” she changed it to “Jenny never pays attention to Jim”. Who knew? That I could get good advice from Jenny Garth? Maybe others didn’t withdraw from me. I withdrew from them?

Yesterday, Don Miller blogged about going deeper rather than wider. Instead of fishing for more friends, build better relationships with the ones you have. Instead of going for 1,000 FB friends. Spend actual time with your dearest friends.

I keep complaining about where our society is going … we don’t have time for real relationships anymore. Our conversations have become Tweets. 140 characters or less that just gets sent out into cyberspace. Some get answered, most are ignored. I should start practicing what I preach … Concern myself with people. I have a feeling I won’t be lonely anymore.

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command, so that you will love one another.
John 15: 12-17 (ESV)