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A Word From Our Pastor . . .

“A Word for July”

          We are trying to sell our house on Whidbey Island so we can move to Lynnwood.  We haven’t had many showings and no offers yet.  It’s only been 6 or 7 weeks so we have not gotten panicky.  It’s interesting how you can go from feeling “Oh, I know it will sell” to “Boy, I sure hope that it sells” to “Oh please God, bring us a buyer!”  Prayer tends to get more urgent and specific as time goes by and we think that God is not taking any action.

      Somebody said that prayer has four possible answers – from God’s perspective anyway: “No”, “Slow”, “Grow” and “Go!”  Sometimes the answer is simply NO, and we have to have the faith that Father knows best.  Sometimes God’s response is more like “Let’s just take it slow right here” and our patience is really tested.  Waiting patiently for us usually means that we have to believe that God is waiting for things to fall in the right place before the answer to prayer can happen.  While it is comforting to remember that he knows the future and how the answer to our prayer could affect things, it can still be hard to wait for things to “happen”!  The “Grow” message to prayer indicates that God sees that the person praying has some maturing to do in one or more areas.  I hate that message.  I guess I want the formula to be pretty simple: I pray, God hears and God says “Go” or yes to whatever it is that I’m asking.

      In the Bible it’s interesting to see how people first began praying to God.  The first prayers weren’t requests at all – rather they were simply expressions of worship and thanksgiving.  Many times people built altars when they felt that they had connected with God, and the altar was a way to commemorate the importance of the place where is happened.  The first communications with God then, were really times of communion instead of petitions, and that’s probably what God prefers.  Just the kids spending some time with Daddy!