Yes!!! I want to be in control!
However, I’m happy to say that I want to be in control less than I used to. This patience that the Lord has been working into my character is probably best illustrated in my attitude toward intercessory prayer. There are requests on my list--old, old requests--that I used to routinely grieve and mourn over. I just knew that they were in accord with God’s will and that He should delight in answering . But I also “knew” that His delay in answering was causing big problems. The very situations I was addressing in prayer were being exacerbated by God’s failure to answer. Now. Yesterday. Immediately.
Thankfully, all of those prayer requests are strictly tied to Biblical truth about God’s character and how He wants to work in people’s lives. And as I have laid (and continue to lay) those scripture prayers before His throne, I have meditated on and studied what the scripture actually means so that I can pray The Truth accurately. As a result of that prayerful study and studious praying, I have begun to understand that God’s workings in people’s lives takes the long view.
I have learned to see my prayers not as Associated Press updates that would be old news in a matter of days, but rather as things permanent and precious that God collects and keeps: Revelation 5:8 says that the prayers of the saints appear in heaven as golden bowls of incense, offered before the throne. The prayers do not bear a sell-by date; they are ever timely, ever rising before Him as pleasing, worshipful incense. I can trust Him to give His attention to answering them in the fullness of His time. I can continue to pray.
This is patience, and it is a work of grace in me.
