Praying through the...

"But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint." Isaiah 40:31

Ok...those of you who read my blog often know that I use a part of speech called the ellipsis a lot in my writing. You may not know what it is called, but you probably noticed the dot, dot dot. My writing is very conversational, and the ... just helps me convey a pause. It is more effective than a comma or a period. I use it for dramatic effect. In the past year though, I learned that I may use it too much.

The book that I wrote with my two pastors this past year contained a lot of my blog posts. I compiled and organized them into chapters with themes that worked for the devotional book we were working on. We had a member of our congregation who is a retired teacher edit the book for us. He contacted me one day and asked me to fix something. He suggested that I used the ellipsis a bit too many times. It seemed to lose the dramatic effect I had in my daily blog posts. So, using the "find and replace" tool in Microsoft Word, I found that I DID use this grammatical tool a lot...419 times in 134 pages!

This morning, the book that I am reading, The Circle Maker by Mark Batterson, has a whole section devoted to the ellipsis! Since I am such a fan of the ... this caught my attention!

My prayer list is long. There are things that I have been praying about for years, with no real answer from God. There have been times in my life that I just stopped praying for certain things because, honestly, I guess I just believed they could and would not ever happen. There are things that I want for my life and have been waiting for that just never seem to happen, no matter how hard I wish for them or pray for them, but the WANT and the DESIRE for them are still there. I think I just assumed that if they haven't happened yet, they aren't going to happen. I think I give up too soon. There seems to be something hanging on in my heart...

It's that ...that is the hardest. The waiting. The wanting. The feeling that there is something missing or that there is more yet to come. Mark Batterson suggests that we DO give up too easily and that we should continue to circle those prayers AND those promises that God gives us about our prayers.

"And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive." Matthew 21:22

"Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it." John 14:13-14

"If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you." John 15:7

While I don't think these promises give us the right to make a "Christmas wish list" of things we want, such as winning the lottery, being famous, or getting a new car, I do think that if we are asking God for things that are in line with his will for us, than he will give them to us...in His own time.

There it is again, that dot, dot, dot that makes us wait! We don't want to wait for the things we want, do we? His own time. God promises that he WILL answer our prayers, but HIS timing may be completely different than ours.

So what to do with that ... time? I am just trying to PRAY my way through it and LEAN on the promise that God WILL answer and I WILL see his glory when the promises come true!