My prayer life has been challenging for me recently. I was in a great morning routine where God and I would spend time together. I was blessed to receive His grace to see Him in the details of my life. I could feel His presence in prayer, and start to distinguish thoughts that were my own verse thoughts put there by Him. Then, I had my fourth child… My routine was thrown off. My prayers were not in peaceful mornings, but in offering up pain postpartum, middle of the night small infant cries, and trying to keep everyone mostly alive, clean, and no more than 15 minutes late to any commitments.
You know that feeling when you fight with your spouse? You’re tight in your chest, can’t seem to focus, and daily living just feels harder than normal until it’s all resolved? Well, that’s how I feel with Jesus right now. And what’s worse, is I don’t even know what we are fighting about. I’m not sure why I am so disgruntled. I am not sure why I feel like I am swimming upstream.
So, like any spiritually mature person, I have been pouting about it. And pouting in prayer to Jesus about my pout. I have been asking the Lord to hit me in the face with what I should be doing. I’ve done my best to put myself in a place to be found. Now I am in the classroom of patience, waiting to hear what God has in store for me.
During my time in this classroom I have come across “trust” all over the place: in scripture readings, comments from my children, my mom’s group decided to do a 30 day retreat with the Litany of Trust – I am telling you, the theme of trust has been coming from strangers. This story below being one of the random things that has crossed my path relating to trust:
France native, known as Charles Blondin, was a famous acrobat and tightrope walker. Living and performing in the mid 1800s, he was most famous for his many stunts crossing Niagara Falls Gorge on a tightrope. He crossed the American side to the Canadian side and then back again on many occasions. When he would reach one side, he would look to the crowd and he would ask them, “Do you believe I can do it again!?” The crowd replied, “Yes! Yes! We believe!” He would go on to ask, “Do you believe I can do it blindfolded?!” Again, the crowd replied, “Yes! Yes! We believe!” So he walked to the other side with a blindfold. Each time, more daring than the last.
“Do you believe I can do it pushing a wheelbarrow?!” The crowd cheered, “Yes! Yes! We believe!” So he did. Making his final stunt most dramatic, he asked, “Do you believe I can cross with someone in the wheelbarrow!?” The crowd, still swept up in the amazement, replied, “Yes! Yes! We believe!” Blondin then says to the crowd, “I need a volunteer!” The crowd got very quiet. No one stepped up. The only person crazy enough to get in that wheelbarrow was Blondin’s manager. The one who knew him and trusted him the most out of everyone in that crowd. The cheers must have been deafening when they made it to the other side!
Join me today in Christ’s wheelbarrow. Don’t shrink back into the crowd after shouting that you believe. Put your trust in Him. God is not out to trick us. He tells us in His Word,” Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not more important than they?” (Matthew 6:26) Trust. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding.
