Shake it off

Praise be to God for His joy!

I mentioned in my last post that He delivered and it was nothing but ON TIME.

I was in desperate need.

Sometimes we learn through the lacking of things.  Other times we make it through only by the lavishing of things.

His joy is being lavished on me right now.  I can't tell you why.  There were recent days I prayed for joy to come and, at best, I faked my way through.

Faking is not always a bad thing.  Especially if we are being obedient without the warm fuzzies that go along with it.  I believe we are well within reason to fake some joy even when we don't feel it.  

Ok.  So maybe I do know why God has opened the doors of heaven and rained down the joy.

Most of the prayers that I am passionately and fervently bringing before God Almighty either get the answer I didn't want or seem farfetched and hopeless. 

I would say that requires some joy for the girl praying, wouldn't you?!?

It seems like every direction I turn my heart is pulled by someone I love being disappointed, disillusioned, discouraged, defeated, or dejected. 
(I didn't mean to use all of those D words but they seemed to fit)

None of these issues are small matters either.

They are big to me and to the ones living them out.

Prayer is my only option. 

The best one even.

But resting when all the praying has been done is unnerving.

Last Friday morning Shep and I did our morning prayer routine.  It has been a great way to start our day.  We approach God and voice to Him all the stuff that we shouldn't fret over during the day.  Just the act of talking to Him expresses our trust in Him as the only Way.

After we had finished praying we began to discuss some of the requests that we had prayed over.

BIG MISTAKE.

We had just given these requests to the One who could supply answers and direct our steps.  Now we were trying to wrap worldly wisdom around God sized requests. It wasn't possible.

I could feel my forehead wrinkling in worry.
My shoulders sagged in doubt.


Immediately Shep said, "Baby, shake it off.  Quit taking these things back on you.  We have given them to God. Now let's rest in that and take the next step of this day."

It was a good word from a good man.

He could literally see the transformation in me as doubt and fear did its work.  It completely undid in a matters of seconds what faith had built up moments before.

It happens just that fast.


Be on guard.  Shake the worries off.  Pray hard.  Rest.