Tag Archives: author

Praying boldly, in community

24 Feb

Since I had the realization that the Christian life is all about walking with God, I have been thinking about prayer. Prayer is one of the ways that we connect with God the deepest. And I believe that it is through seeking God in prayer that we gain wisdom and direction for our lives.

Just this past Tuesday, I was challenged by two verses. One was Psalm 21:2-3 – “You have given him his heart’s desire and have not withheld the request of his lips. For you meet him with rich blessings; you set a crown of fine gold upon his head.” The other was Matthew 21:22 – “And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.”

This is bold prayer.

I don’t often pray like that. I usually add “But not my will, but yours” to end of my prayers, just to avoid being presumptuous about God answering my requests. But then I realized that the very addition of that saying (for me) was presuming that God wasn’t going to fulfill my request – for me, that phrase was synonymous with “But I don’t really expect you to do what I’m asking.”

When thinking through my future with writing, and my desire to be a published author, I have shied away from asking boldly that God would make me a published author because it seemed like a long shot. It seemed like I was asking a lot of God. But that’s exactly the point. At least twice in the gospels, Jesus says that we can literally move mountains with our faith in prayer. Is not being published easier than that?

My problem is that I diminish God’s goodness. Surely, God can’t be that good. I believe that He can do it; I just don’t believe that He will. Yeah, He’s given me this talent, desire, and opportunity to write but that doesn’t mean anything, I think. But when I was praying through the two verses above, and my doubt in God’s goodness, I realized that God doesn’t give us talents and desires only to say “Oh but sorry, you’re never going to do anything with that.” He gives us desires to call us to fulfill them! It will be in His timing and His way, but He still calls us to use our talents.

So often I view God’s will and goodness as only perfect and good in His eyes – I just have to trust that it’s perfect and good, though I can’t see that it is. Sometimes He does call us to trust His goodness without necessarily seeing it. But other times, He blatantly displays His goodness in ways we can’t describe as anything but good! I trust that I will see God’s goodness to me during this season of life.

Another thought I had about prayer is that if I truly believe it is the way we connect with God, and that it’s of utmost importance, I should desire to pray in community (with other people). So this morning, when I had coffee with my friend Cathy, I asked her if she wanted to start praying together. She loves corporate prayer so she immediately said yes. We prayed and it was a great experience. I felt like God met us there.

There is a prayer meeting on Sunday mornings before church. When I first heard about it, there was no way I wanted to go to something like that. “All you do is pray?” But now, I’m intrigued and excited by the possibilities of prayer. You never know how God is going to move!

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Am I serious about this?

12 Feb

This past week brought about some changes in my employment status. First, the church no longer has funds to pay me so my part-time job there is no more. I was making about $240 a month more working there than just collecting unemployment so it’s somewhat unfortunate.

What really is unfortunate, though, is that I found out that since I quit my job at Dare 2 Share for “no good reason under the law” and since I worked there within the past 5 quarters (3-month periods used to calculate unemployment benefits), I am now only qualified for about half of the unemployment benefits I had calculated. It appears that I will still get the same amount every week (which is a definite blessing!) but that instead of getting unemployment for 6 months, I will now only get it for 3. Considering the fact that the average unemployment stint these days is 9 months, I’m sure hoping that God has another plan in mind!

That means that I kind of have to get my butt in gear and actually start taking the job search seriously, as well as tackle my book project with more gusto and intentionality than had previously been applied. It is reassuring to remind myself, however, that even though this realization has changed my perception of the situation, the actual situation has not changed at all – God knew this all along and nothing has changed in His purpose or plan for me.

Nonetheless, it is a reality that my perception of the situation has changed. I no longer have “all the time in the world.” I have 3 months. Three months to find a job or to start making money from my writing. The question then becomes: am I serious about this whole writing thing? Am I willing to commit my financial future to it, over pursuing a reliable job?

I have been praying that God would direct me to either put the majority of my efforts into finding a job or into writing my book. I have not received any clear direction either way, so I am going to continue on with the leading that I have been operating out of until this point – writing my book. I’ve asked God to give me a clear sign that writing is not what I’m supposed to pursue. But until I get such a sign, I still feel like I am called to be serious about being a writer – or rather, a published author.

Plus, submitting queries for freelance work qualifies as  a job contact, right?

 

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