On Trust, Hope, and Praying for Your Heart's Desire

Here we go!

Later this morning, our dear, wonderful, cherished eldest daughter will be interviewing at her top choice college, competing for a spot in the University Fellows program and for the Presidential Scholarship.  As in, full tuition.

It's been a long week for the mother, here.

I've been so torn - knowing this is where her heart's desire is, praying the Lord would allow favor.  And yet, as I've been praying for her, my faith has been bumping head-long into the smashed and shattered dreams of the past five years, all the time we have prayed and hoped and pleaded with the Lord regarding my husband's job situation, to be told "No" or "Wait" again and again and again.

Sometimes it makes praying tough.

Sometimes it makes trusting tough.

And yet. . . . . .

 "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!"  (Matthew 7:8-11)

 How often do my own kids ask for something they want with all their heart at the moment, and I know that in the long run it will be bad for them?  Or that they don't see the full picture, as to why I can't say "yes" at that time?  And that in saying yes to their desire, I would in effect be giving them the proverbial stone instead of the bread?

Do I not trust the God of all the Universe to do what is right?  Do I not know of the love, the lavish, profound love, that God the Father has for me? 

And more than that - do I not know how He loves my daughter so much more than I ever could?  He knows what she needs in all aspects of her life.  He can see her path and her future, and will work all things so that her life will be more and more conformed to the image of Christ.

And so.

I hope, and trust, and pray, and ask God fervently that she may do well this weekend.  Represent herself, her family, and her Savior with all that she is.  I pray that she may find favor with the interviewers, and that it would bring glory to God to provide her with the scholarships necessary to attend this university.

And yet, I rest.  Rest in the knowledge that God's ways are not our ways, and that His thoughts are much higher that our thoughts.  That He may direct our paths in very, very different ways that we would ourselves have chosen.

So join me, won't you?  Join me in praying - not for our situation alone (although I sure would appreciate it!) - but pray with abandon to a Father who loves you and wants to hear from you.  A Father who can be trusted to work all things for His glory. 

He can be trusted with your heart's desire.

**Can I recommend The Praying Life by Paul Miller?  It has really energized and changed the way I view prayer.**