It's Easier to Accept than to Expect

(you will most likely learn nothing from this blog, it is complete and utter gibberish and it's probably even hard to follow so good luck! k bye)

After a couple of days in the hospital with Asher, I was texting a friend and I said:

I think what I’m feeling about Asher’s future...his new medications and what that means for epilepsy and asthma is: incredible fear but I’m completely numb. It’s creating the weirdest feelings within me and I can’t explain it.  Is this peace?  It doesn't feel like it; it's something else. It's numb fear.

She replied: 

Courtney, I have to say this.  PRAY WITH EXPECTANCY. Pray for what you WANT to see then hold fast, expect!  PRAY AND EXPECT IT. 

expect: 

to consider probable or certain 

It was a text that I could tell was placed into her from God and it got me thinking.  I woke up the next morning to an article in Relevant called Why Your Prayers Aren’t 'Working.' You can read it here. I hated the title, so I clicked on it (most likely to judge it). Guess what it talked about?  Prayer and expectancy.  I got served.

Ok God…I’m listening. While I watched Asher nap in a huge hospital bed, I texted the article to my pastor with this:

The only difference between the author of this article and myself is that I don’t see prayer as a Christian check list, even though that can be common.  I pray and talk to God every hour of my life that I’m awake.  I just really suck at the big, focused prayers for big, important things. (btw, this is how I am with people, too. I can talk and talk to you forever but the big stuff...the emotions...I'm just not good at it)

In the big stuff, I just don’t expect Him to do what I’m asking so I don’t even ask. I’m good at asking Him to be with me and then trusting that He is. But I feel like I learn more in suffering so I assume that’s what He wants for me anyway, why even ask for anything else? Maybe He only wants me to find joy in pain? It’s been the pattern so far. 

Also, I don’t want to be disappointed anymore. I ask and it’s never what I think it will be. And that’s ok!  Really! I’m ok with whatever answer He gives me but while I know that He wants me to ask…invites me…I just can’t anymore. 

I don’t know how to get back to it.  I feel fake or something asking for big healings and really I don’t think it would happen anyway.  It’s so rare. It’s easier to just find joy in pain, to say that God is good no matter what and figure that this is my road. 

As my pastor prays for me in this and thinks it over, he gave me the scripture that I pray more than any other found in Mark 9:24 "Lord I believe; help my unbelief."  

Don't get me wrong.  I know He CAN.  But WILL He?  

So that’s where I am.  I don’t know how to expect anymore. It’s not even my instinct to pray for healing first.  If I’m in pain, I’ll pray for relief but I don’t think I even expect it to come, I think I just expect Jesus to come (and He does, every time).  When it comes to the big things like Asher’s medical issues, I allow other people to pray for his healing but I don’t.  I’ve tried to, it just seems better (easier) to accept them than to expect the miraculous. 

It's easier to accept than to expect 

I think one reason is that I used to think that God owed me healing. Almost that it was a trick He used to get me to believe more.  That it had to be a big production at the altar with fog machines, lots of shouting and people running; that healing could not come quietly with no fanfare.

I stopped believing that but then I went in the complete opposite direction. I stopped expecting it at all! But the Bible tells me that He is a healer. And because I know that, I still pray in the best way I can, which sometimes is just saying His name and uttering "help me." 

sometimes (often) I pray with babies hanging off of me at the altar

So what is the truth?  I don't think it's anything I've mentioned so far. God's healing won't ever look the same because then we could just check off some things "to do" and we'd see healing.  We'd start craving the healing more than the Healer.  We'd leave Him out of it. One time, I started writing and this came out: 

maybe God doesn't always heal us because 

we want the healing more than the Healer

I don’t have an answer. I’m just going to seek expectancy I suppose; I'm going to pray for God to show me what that looks like.  It is almost shocking to me that I didn't even realize that I'd dropped expectancy from my prayers. When did that happen? I'm married to a man who expects literally ANYTHING and EVERYTHING from God and I'm over here like "sustain me IN it, and I'll just stay in it forever; it's good enough." 

And it IS good IF that is His will.  HE IS ALWAYS GOOD ENOUGH-MORE THAN GOOD ENOUGH-FOR ME. But He is a God who has shown us in His word that He heals. 

I’ve become good at “if not, He is still good” but I’m not so good at "I will pray until something happens, unceasing." I'm not so good at witnessing healing and saying "God is good," because I feel like that in itself is saying He's NOT good when healing doesn't come.  (Which isn't true, but I can't help but feel that that would be what I was expressing).

There's something in my idea of healing that needs...a healing. 

When I'm confused about something, I try to go back to what I know that I know that I know.  Here is what I KNOW about healing: We can say "Your will be done, Lord" while simultaneously and continually praying like crazy for the healing we want. We can supernaturally live on both sides of that prayer for healing. Until the day we die. We can accept that our healing may come on earth and it may not come until heaven. 

It takes too much effort to keep yourself from hoping in order to protect your heart from disappointment. 

It's exhausting when He has invited us to rest in Him.  

I don't want to be disappointed in God.  I want to be ok with whatever, so it's easier to just accept things as they are. I think He wants more for me, though.  

I read a Psalm yesterday that, for whatever reason felt connected to these thoughts.  I think my thinking needs rewired or rewritten.  I think I need to get back to the facts. So I'm going to start over. 

(parentheses are mine, everything else is scripture) 

My soul melts away for sorrow;

(life is hard)
strengthen me according to your word!

(your word restores me)

29 

Put false ways far from me

(whatever I've learned about You that is wrong, correct it)

    and graciously teach me your law!

(and by grace teach me TRUTH)

30 

I have chosen the way of faithfulness;

(I don't want to be faithful, it isn't instinct.  So I'll make it a conscious decision; I'll choose) 

    I set your rules before me.

(Your words I must KNOW, I must look at them and contemplate them daily)

31 

I cling to your testimonies, O Lord;

(Looking is not enough.  I must cling to them, be intimate)

    let me not be put to shame!

32 

I will run in the way of your commandments

(I will run FROM false things I've learned and run TO the truth which never ever changes) 

    when you enlarge my heart!

(enlarge my heart to accept the things that are too big to fit)

Psalm 119:28-32