Restoring what the locusts had eaten

Today was a beautiful day.  It was a day where my spirit could not help but praise God.  It was a day of redemption.

Monday morning I dreamt of a huge insect sitting in a devastated field.  My son Joel (God has such a good sense of humour…) woke me and immediately I asked God what the insect was and the word ‘locust’ came to mind.  We spent Monday morning prayer time asking God to restore to us the things in our lives that the locusts had eaten.  (Joel 2)

Last week, God did a deep work of forgiveness in me as I blogged about then, and today I know why and just how deep it was. 

I was awoken at 2.15am by our friends, who were in labour with their first child.  Because the baby was breech-transverse and with a cord around the neck, there was no option but C-section and we raced through amber lights to the emergency of a small hospital in Lima centre.  My friend’s personal doctor was unable to attend the birth, and neither were any of her staff, so I had the privilege of being able to enter the operating room instead of her doctor (her doctor was going to have a non-medical role!!).  I was able to film the whole thing and support her and her husband during the different stages of the birth and post-natal bonding.

God set it up.

Judah (who lives up to his meaning ‘praise’) was programmed in to be born tomorrow.  Everything was set, and my friends’ doctor would be back in town.  But just over 24 hours early, right on his due date, Judah/God decided it was time. 

And I am humbled that I found favour with Him to be able to be part of the birth and support them through it all. 

And reflecting this evening, I saw just how much God had restored today.  He allowed my nearly identical but unprepared c-section experience in that same hospital just 14 months ago to pave the way for my friends’ preparation and my ability to help guide during the day.  And He also allowed me to see how much my attitude towards the medical staff had changed.  The fruit of the work of forgiveness in me. 

If today had happened before that forgiveness process I would have been in battle mode – trying to push my friends’ preferences on the doctors – trying to fight for them.  But instead, we prayed, I spoke up respectfully and kindly to the medical staff and God melted their hearts towards us and opened doors.  His peace surrounded the day. 

And God began to help me see my c-section birth in a different light too.  And snuggled up at bedtime tonight to my big 14-month old baby who is becoming a little boy, sensitive and calm and joyful, my heart began to be overwhelmed with thanks for everything God did for me during his birth.  Everything that I was too fearful, or angry or confused to be able to acknowledge at the time.  

And to see my dear friends at peace because God prepared them so well, and remembering Kaleb’s birth and the sacrifice that a c-section was for me at the time, makes me realize once again, that God’s perspective is so much greater. I am so glad that He knows best and that I submitted to Him in it all. 

‘I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten –
    the great locust and the young locust,
    the other locusts and the locust swarm–
my great army that I sent among you.
You will have plenty to eat, until you are full,
    and you will praise the name of the Lord your God,
    who has worked wonders for you;

Joel 2:25-26

And today – I am full. 

Tempted to give up

Sometimes I look at a bad situation and I start praying.  

And that is the right response.  

A broken bank balance, a defiant child, a crying heart once again failing to change herself.  Prayer is always the right response. 

But what sort of prayer?

A deep desperate helpless cry,

or

a submitted, authoritative, listening prayer?

What if I also allowed the situation to show me a larger perspective.  What if God had already responded and set His will forward and the opposite I see is just a temporary spiritual kick back? What if the intensity is a sign that breakthrough, not devastation is near?

All I know is that before we receive a financial gift that is going to change our hopeless bank balance, we regularly have a financial attack.  A broken water tank meaning jug showers out of pots and pans has become this week’s norm – too normal that we complain not, struggling forward not to cope with another thing wrong, but to carry a pan full without overflowing the brim. 

All I know is that before my child steps forward in leaps and bounds in character, I often spend days wondering if he will ever listen to me, if it is too late, if I had only stepped down harder, if he will forever write on the walls, already condemning him in my mind to be a graffiti artist, and he has not yet reached 6?

All I know is my own struggle with sin – this week striving to respect my husband in all I say, and realizing instead all the complaints that flow far too quickly off my tongue – do I have faith that the Holy Spirit will empower my words and I too will change?

And then I remember that the struggle points to heaven’s momentum to bring change – it is precisely because I am about to be empowered to speak and encourage my husband that I am struggling now to do so – if I am just willing to submit to God and accept my powerlessness to change me. 

And it is precisely because my prayer for depth of character and sincerity has been answered that my child is still sticking in his heels, until we sit, heads bowed on his bed, him asking the Holy Spirit to change him and give him self-control, and all of a sudden his impulse to label everything directly turns into everything being labeled by post-it notes instead.

And it is precisely because we know there is an enabling gift flying through the imaginary bank transfer lines from their bank to ours that I just smile and tell Satan to get behind me when the water tank fails – does he think a few financial attacks are going to stop us trusting that God will send enough to cover it and to pay for the things he has destined the money for?   

You see, I am reminded, that it is all about perspective.

And perspective shifts the way we pray.

Thank you for your provision for us daily, thank you for hot water, and stoves for heating water and for jugs, and thank you for the gifts you are sending to provide for all our needs.

Thank you for my child and his heart, already won by you, and that you are showing him how to humbly come to you for help.  Help him always to know he can’t but you can.  Help him to hear your voice louder than the devil’s temptations.

Thank you for your transforming enabling Spirit on my words.  Thank you that I am going to be known as an encourager and defender of my husband, not a loose tongued wife.  Thank you that you want to use me to show others how you enable us to be more like you in our marriage – oh that I would never think it was in my own strength, but recognize it is only through you that I am sanctified and enabled.

It is all about heaven’s perspective.  Where do you need to know it? You know He is waiting to tell you, don’t you? Just draw close and listen to that whisper. 

Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. 

 – 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18