Modified Obedience

Earlier this week, I took you on a little trip down memory lane to a time when God called me to fast and pray on Tuesdays...specifically for my future husband. Yesterday I received an email from one of you who read that story and felt led by God to fast right now about something specific. To you, my friend, I say KUDOS for doing a little better than I did eight years ago.

Because...you see...

Five months later – actually a little more than five months later – I sat down with my prayer journal, and with pink pen in hand, I proudly wrote, “Well, I promised You my lunch hours on Tuesdays, so here I am.”  Only because God is God was He still waiting.  Five months?  I’m not sure I would have extended as much grace.

I continued writing as I sat perched at the dining room table.  “Not really sure how to approach this time – it seems weird to come before You without books or the Bible or the TV on in the background or at the very least, a fan on.  But I will remain still before You and wait for You to guide my thoughts.”

Poor God.  I’d already broken two parts of the assignment.  Not only had I stubbornly waited five months to show up, but when I did, I modified the assignment to sit at my dining room table instead of in the prayer chapel as I’d been directed!  I’m surprised He said anything at all to me.  I deserved the silent treatment.  After all, modified obedience deserves modified information. 

So why had I waited so long?  Sadly, I don’t really have a good answer.  And I certainly don’t remember.  If I were to guess, I would say that lunch invitations from my friends crept up…and then perhaps the need to work through my lunch…and then I forgot all about it.  The Ladies Bible study concluded for the holidays the week after my grand revelation during prayer request and praise time, so my pastor’s wife didn’t have a weekly checkpoint time.  And when we reconvened in the spring, we switched topics, and by that time, probably everyone had forgotten my challenge altogether.

But God doesn’t forget things like that.  Promises made on our part are promises He expects to see kept.  So gently, as the weeks and months passed, He’d drop a hint into the thoughts of my mind….So…when are you planning to meet with Me on Tuesdays?

Just as I have no good reason why I waited so long to meet with Him, I also have no good reason why I modified the meeting place.  Something about the chapel intimidated me, and I simply had no desire to go there.  I’d only been inside once or twice, and it was just so…quiet.  And what would people think if they saw me walking toward it?  It would be like going to the altar at church…would people speculate the reason I needed to go?  Praying at home just seemed much safer. 

Unfortunately, God is not always interested in what seems safer.  He’s interested in unabashed obedience.  I imagine it broke His heart that Tuesday in early May when He saw me park at the dining room table with the journal and the pink pen.  He wasn’t impressed that I left the TV off, that I put the music away, that I even opted for the silence of no fan.  As much as I tried to create the atmosphere of the prayer chapel in my dining room – it was not the prayer chapel and I could not fool God into thinking that it was. 

As I sat there that day, fully expecting to receive a sparkling revelation about my future husband, I slipped into the ridiculous...I started thinking of specific names. Men who might be...the one. The daydreams began...carefully encased in directive prayer...just to make it palatable for the occasion. 

And in so spending my hour, I messed with the third portion of the assignment.  I was there to pray for my husband.  Not there to speculate who he might be. Not there to daydream a way in which God might orchestrate a love for me in someone's heart.  And yet I spent the entire hour doing that. 

I kept one eye on the clock and as the hour came to a close, I closed my journal and put the cap on my pen.  I was quite satisfied that the hour had been nothing short of a success and God had been pleased with my obedience – although delayed – in giving Him my Tuesday lunch. 

Perhaps this is a moment when I’m glad I can’t see God’s journal.  The sadness in His heart surely would have shown as He recorded the day from His perspective:  Bekah finally met with Me.  I’ve waited 22 Tuesdays in a pew in the prayer chapel, and she never came.  Today I got a note that she would be there, but she wanted to change the meeting place to her house.  I was so anxious to see her that I gladly met her there – but all she never stopped talking.  All she wanted to do was offer suggestions about how I could fix her up with someone.  I didn’t even get to say a word.