Static on the Other Line
I’ve always been a pretty big and bold “pray-er.”
I’ve never let my faults and hopes and dreams and miseries hold me back from God, and I’ve always said exactly what I wanted and needed or thought I wanted and needed.
That being said, I’ve realized I have this mentality that God can take it; He can handle whatever it is I throw His way.
I’m bold.
Without shame.
I pray for things by name, with specifics and clauses and fine print.
Some of you might disagree with that approach to prayer, but that’s not how I view my time with God.
If God so desperately and truthfully wants a close and intimate relationship with me, He should be able to handle me in all my mismatched glory, in my mountains and valleys; He should be able to take my bluntness and shyness, my wrath and my joy, my praise and my hopelessness.
However, over the past few years, and especially the past few nights, I’ve had this recurring phrase come up in my prayers that has just hit a little harder than usual.
I’ve found myself saying, “I feel like there’s static on the other line. You know, God, I’ve been praying about these things for years and I can’t hear Your voice in all of this.”
And it’s becoming increasingly frustrating.
There are a few things I’ve been praying for specifically: a path for me to follow (especially in terms of my career); I’ve prayed for Him to soften my heart to certain things that I would rather be stone-faced toward; I’ve prayed that when people meet me, they meet Him; and I’ve prayed for people who have no idea I’m praying for them - for their joy, their hopes, and the things that they want answers about themselves; I’ve prayed that I continue to be kind, even when it’s hard and that He continues to push me outside my comfort zone.
Yet discouragement has settled in.
I feel like He’s not hearing me, no matter how many times I ask or reword the prayer.
Of course, I know deep down, that’s not true.
But that’s what it feels like.
I’m reminded of that simple truth through the words of John Piper from his book, Finally Alive,
“My feelings are not God. God is God. My feelings do not define truth. God’s word defines truth. My feelings are echoes and responses to what my mind perceives. And sometimes — many times — my feelings are out of sync with the truth. When that happens — and it happens every day in some measure — I try not to bend the truth to justify my imperfect feelings, but rather, I plead with God: purify my perceptions of your truth and transform my feelings so that they are in sync with the truth.”
There are times when I want to give up praying, but the Bible says, “pray continually.”
Jeremiah 29:11-12 states,
“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’ Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.”
This string of acknowledgment that He is always listening was further exemplified through my dear friend, Martha June, on her blog, Called Higher.
She writes beautifully of prayers whispered decades before and answered decades later, penning so beautifully, so simply: “He remembered.”
He remembered.
And that hit me right in the gut.
God remembers the big things and the little things, even when I feel like there’s static on the other line.
Maybe it’s just not time yet, maybe He’s given me an answer already and I’ve blatantly chosen to ignore Him. Maybe that prayer was granted long ago, but I’m too caught up in all the things it didn’t become to notice what it did!
Whatever it is, He remembers.
Yet, He is also stitching my future together for my good, and He knows better than I what I truly need.
But I continue to pray; boldly, unapolgetically, without fear, without hesitation and without ceasing.
I’d rather Him say that I kept Him very busy, than say He rarely heard from me at all.
There’s never static on the other line, even when it feels like there is.
Feelings are not God.
God is God.
And we need to let Him be God.
Simple as that.
I have linked my dear, dear friend, Martha June’s encouraging blog below, as I feel everyone should read this beautiful piece of writing! LOVE YOU, MJ!
