Watch and pray, dont get frustrated. – God

I’ve said it a million times, “Its all connected, if we are paying attention.” And still it sideswipes me. How is it that God can say things, we can write it down, and still it goes right over our heads?

Several weeks ago something amazing happened. I will tell you later. But what I can tell you is it changed everything. But with change also comes an upheaval of all the things that had been. I am one of those people that if I want to make change in an area, I start looking at the micro habits of my life. The places and spaces where I dont think, I just do. It is in those spaces that life movements are habitual and ingrained. Adding other things in those places have the potential of a match stick. It can ignite and change will occur. Well this particular amazing change – shifted the potential of one of the major spaces of my life.

What happens when God does a work in someone else? Have you ever been in a routine with someone and then they change it. This happens all the time. For example, you and a group of people do a thing together for a time, maybe even years. Then one of you, moves, stops coming, or even changes jobs. Everyone feels the shift. What that person use to do is now gone. How that person use to handle things is now the groups responsibility. The love and light that person use to bring is absent. It changes everything. This shifting that occured in my life is similar but its internal. God did an external (outside of me) work on someone very close to me and it had shifted my internal way of being. The way they respond is different but not completely. The way they do things and go about things is different but again not completely.

Ok, what’s the point. The point is when change happens it shifts the way things were and when the way things were, are not the same (because the truth is we really dont like change – we like comfortability) it causes friction. Friction causes frustration. Hence, the reason why the Lord gave me the simplest of directions – Watch and pray, dont get frustrated.

Guess what I’ve been doing. Getting frustrated!

The Bible talks about watch and pray. In Matthew 26:41 Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

What does it mean to watch and pray? To watch is to know what to pray for! See what is and feel what is and pray about that. Be present to what is going on in your life. Dont distract yourself with tertiary things. (thats the word the Lord said when I was railpraying at Him) Tertiary is 3rd. Not first of importance, or secondary. But 3rd.

How do we get so out of whack that we are reacting with frustration about things not of great importance? Well James tells us.

James 4:2-3 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. ³ When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

I believe that this is where offense breeds. Are we paying attention? I am not sure we are. I think by far we are reacting more than anything. Reacting to the pressure. Reacting to the friction. Reacting to the change we feel when everything still feels basically the same. And so we aim at tertiary things. Because if we were dealing with the greater and more important. We would be watching and praying rather than reacting.

I have a 15 yr old son. He is in a major growth spurt. He is tired alot. He sleeps alot. He eats alot. He complains alot about achy body. Just like that -we may want change and growth in our lives. We dont want to have to rest and stop to ingest what is required. So we do one part of the process – complain about not want to have to feel the tireness and pain. That is the tertiary!

For me in particular because of my bent of personality, I tend to be critical and controlling when I focus on the tertiary. Whan I feel uncomfortable on the inside of my soul. I start looking at how to control my external world. I try to for order where there is disorder. Like yard work or a cluttered room.

Just like most of us. I diagnose the issue completely wrong and focus on something else. I talk about my frustrations and thankfully I have good people to point me to Jesus. He really is always the answer. And like normal for me, I finally hit the frying pan moment. When I began to railpray at the Lord. Then took a nap. When I woke, I put on some worship music and began to sing about doing one thing as I added order by folding towels.

Though an army may encamp against me,

My heart shall not fear;

Though war may rise against me,

In this I will be confident.

4 One thing I have desired of the Lord,

That will I seek:

That I may dwell in the house of the Lord

All the days of my life,

To behold the beauty of the Lord,

And to inquire in His temple.

5 For in the time of trouble

He shall hide me in His pavilion;

In the secret place of His tabernacle

He shall hide me;

He shall set me high upon a rock.

Psalm 27:3-5

Here is the most important thing – Seek the Lord and dwell in His house.

Secondly – Behold the beauty of the Lord and inquire in His temple.

So that the tertiary will be – In time of trouble He will hide me in the secret place high upon a rock!

Watch and Pray friends! Dont get frustrated.

Thanks for Listening,

Starla