I prayed all
day but I had a bad feeling. The rules of the contest were if you completed
your year-long goal, you had a chance at winning the money. I got an e-mail the
night before and I was a little nervous: “Were you able to complete your goal?”
(They remembered me. That’s a good sign, right?) I shot back: “Yes, I did.” The
next day was the meeting and when they came to the contest part I was piqued.
But as hard
as I had tried to see a positive picture of me winning, it just wasn’t
happening. As the negative thoughts kept popping up, I’d force them away and I
quoted victory scriptures instead. The announcer came up, “Okay, we have two
people who completed the challenge. The winner gets $40 and free meetings all
year long. “Oh good, only two of us.” When she drew the name out, it wasn’t
mine! “Oh Nooo! What happened?!”
All that
positive praying and I just couldn’t make the outcome be what I wanted. The
truth is, I really knew it in my spirit but I just didn’t want to believe it. In
this minor experience I was reminded of a much larger truth.
Sometimes
the Lord’s messages to us are going to be negative and not what we want to
hear. Instead of trying to force the positive result with scriptures, if they
aren’t doing anything, then we need to stop pushing and just ask the Lord,
“What’s going on?” He expects us to have that kind of relationship with Him. I
was trying to muscle through with my own will, but it wasn’t to be. Next time
this happens I’m going to be more sensitive to the situation and just ask, and
save myself some grief!
My incident
was small, but Ezekiel tells of a much graver situation. The prophets weren’t
liking the messages God was giving about war. They decided to enforce their own
will and preached peace instead. “Therefore the Lord God says:
“I will destroy you for these ‘visions’ and lies. My hand shall be against you,
and you shall be cut off from among the leaders of Israel; I will blot out your
names, and you will never see your own country again. And you shall know I am
the Lord. For these evil men deceive my people by saying, ‘God
will send peace,’ when that is not my plan at all” (Ezekiel 13:8-10)!
When we pray
about anything or anyone, we go for the best and that’s a good thing. But if in
our spirit we sense it’s honestly not to be, let’s remember to stop and ask the
Lord what’s up. He’ll let us know. Honest raw truth from God is better than
even the slightest bit of “positive thinking” that is a lie. The sooner we
accept the “negative” message from the Lord, the sooner we can deal with it.
Then we can move on with the assistance of the Holy Spirit to teach and guide us
with what to do next.
Love,
Carolyn
Check out my
blog for a great article, “DON’T GET CAUGHT WITH YOUR PANTS DOWN.” Also my book
WINGS: A JOURNEY IN FAITH is available from Amazon. The new Windows 8 comes
with Kindle as an app, so you can download my books directly to your device.
No comments:
Post a Comment