But those who hope...

I'm in week two of the belief project (or whatever the heck I'm calling it). I'll be honest, I've been distracted and not quite attentive to what God is doing. But, nonetheless, God is reaffirming his promise and reminding me of the part I play. Here's what I discovered today...

"but those who hope in the Lord

will renew their strength."

Isaiah 40:31

I looked up the definitions of the Hebrew words for hope and renew in this passage. Hope means wait, look for, hope, expect. And renew? Among other things, to go through, change, grow up, alter, or change for the better.

I've asked God to change me. I'm being stretched in a belief that God would create a real change in me, a change deep down in my character and my heart that manifests itself in my words and actions.

And today God reminded me that I need to look for him and expect him to do that if I want to see a change in me for the better.

Praying for divine expectation...

My Unbelief Part 2

I think God wants to help me overcome my unbelief… All signs point to this theme in my life and I work through a Beth Moore Study called “Believing God.”

These were my prayers today:

Lord I confess: I doubt that you will transform my parents’ and siblings’ understanding of and relationship with you. I doubt that you will capture the hearts of my friends in real ways. I doubt that you will bring Tommy and I closer together to each other and in our relationship with you. I doubt that you will create any real change in me.

Oh Lord I am sorry. Please, please help me overcome my unbelief! I don’t want to be this way. I grow more cynical and I am less amazed by what is truly amazing. Give me a spirit of awe, a spirit tuned into what you are doing and the incredible nature of your work. Help me to believe that you can create a change in me.

Help me overcome my unbelief. Please don’t give up on me as I muddle through this. Don’t give up if I miss signs that you are working- or if it takes me a really long time to notice your blessings. Please don’t give up if my heart is hard and cynical. Soften it and give me awe for you.

Help me overcome my unbelief.

A few days ago I identified two areas of my life that I really needed to believe that God would show up and move in. One was in my own mindset. Maybe it’s a little bit of postpartumish blues, but I think mostly it’s just my own attitude and need for adjusting; at any rate, I’m unhappy more than I’d like to admit. I am carrying a chip on my shoulder and with it a sense of entitlement. I let my mind tumble headlong down the rabbit hole of how hard I’ve got it and how much I deserve a break, how hard I’m working and how little everyone else is, how no one else can understand because no one has as difficult a life as me. And you can see, of course, how this kind of thinking lends itself so easily to selfishness and self-centeredness. And at the core of it is a general inability to recognize and be happy with the many, many blessings I’ve been given right now. So I’m asking God to change this. To change my mindset. To help me believe and see how he is working in and blessing my life. To help me believe that he can create a change in me and that I won’t be stuck in this wretched, selfish mind forever. Somewhere along the way I got cynical. I stopped seeing the awesomeness of God, I stopped being amazed by him and what he’s doing. I want that to change. I want to be amazed by God.

The second area I’m asking for belief in is in my marriage. Lately I’ve felt like Tommy and I have been disconnected. Marriage has felt like a burden and we haven’t had fun together in so long. I feel like we are not loving each other and listening to each other in ways that the other person recognizes. And I am taking out all my unhappiness on him. I need to see Tommy with new eyes, to see the things I fell in love with again and to enjoy him more.

So I am choosing to believe that in the next ten weeks of this study God will show up in these two areas. I am praying that God will help me pray with faith for these two areas and that I will be given eyes to notice and a heart that appreciates the ways he is working. And even though, quite literally, no one reads this blog, I’m going to use it as a space to document this challenge. Maybe I’ll let people in on the journey as I go, but for now it will, at the very least, be a place where I can go back to see how God worked in my life that one time I took a leap of faith and chose to believe that he could and would show up in real ways.

My Unbelief

Please Lord, don’t let Monster take his first steps while we’re on the missions trip.

Comfort Kelley and Matt- they are hurting and they’ve lost a child. I don’t know how you recover from that.

Help me find my cell phone.

Don’t let my dad die before he gets to see Monster grow up.

Help me to be kinder to Tommy today.

Lord save a place for my family in heaven.

Please let Monster’s nap be extra long today.

Thank you for Charlie’s recovery from surgery. Please guide Megan and Chris on the windy road of raising him.

Lord love Candice extra clearly today. Give her peace about her mom and the house. Just let her feel safe and loved today.

Don’t let Monster have autism. Give me some signs he’s not going to end up unable to make relationships.

Help my unbelief. I don’t know if you are even listening. Or if you are even worth all this.

These have been my prayers lately. They run the gamut from sort of silly and trivial to heavy with the weight of other’s sorrow to deep with fear and worry. And at the very heart of all these prayers whispers a voice that is getting louder and more unsettling all the time. Is God even capable of doing anything? Have you seen him working lately? Is this life you’ve given yourself to worth it? Do you even believe what you’re selling?

I have felt heavy lately with the sorrow of others’ pain. It seems the world blew up for those I love in the last few months. One lost a nephew, just days away from being born into this world with all the joy and wonder that is supposed to carry. Another found out her mother is dying and then had to endure painful conversations highlighting the years of hurt in their relationship. My husband’s best friend has just been told the cancer is spreading and to start living his last days well. A month later his mother passed away. Another couple we love dearly waited patiently to get pregnant and after years of worry and fear that it wouldn’t happen they gave birth to a beautiful baby boy with a hole in his heart and downs syndrome. Instead of coming home with their sweet boy they had to leave him in the care of doctors and nurses at the hospital and then entrust him there again just 2 months later for open heart surgery. It just doesn’t seem fair.

And all of this has left me wondering where God is? Why are you throwing more stuff on the shoulders of people who are already about to break? And selfishly I wonder, when is my other shoe going to drop? What do you have in store for us? I want deeply to believe in the power of Christ. I want to love him more than anything else. But I’m stuck on the doubts. I’m stuck in the pain and the hurt and the seeming absence of God. I’m stuck in my unbelief.

“I do believe. Help me overcome my unbelief!”

Oh how that has been my anthem. Since I read that passage I have echoed the man’s prayer. And ten years into life with God I still want to believe. I’m still asking for help to overcome my disbelief.