There in the corner lay the prayer journal, its pages crumpled and slightly askew from its airborne journey across the room. Yet, as if to mock me, the binding was still intact, no, even stronger maybe than before I had hurled it in my complete frustration. An appropriate symbolic message, of course, that I too would receive strength, even as I felt my own journey spiraling out of control.

As comforting as that might seem, I wasn’t interested in receiving strength right then. I was tired of being strong, tired of being thought of as the strong one. Tired period. My emotions were drained, my body weakened from restless sleep. My days seemed to be spent dealing with endless chaos interrupted only by periodic crisis. I wanted to quit. I would have, too, but my spirit wouldn’t let me. My spirit wasn’t in the same shape as the rest of me. Of course my spirit was strong.

Even though the journal itself bore the brunt of my turmoil, it was my relationship with God that was going though the trial. Yes, I was holding court in my own soul and was charging the Creator of the universe with first-degree disappointment. Oh, I couldn’t charge Him with unfaithfulness. I had the proof of His unfailing goodwill toward me well documented (even though it lay in a heap in the corner!) Disappointment, however, was clearly something I could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt!

I reached out to pick up the mangled chronicle of my life’s journey and sorted through my feelings as I smoothed the pages back into place. I had learned early in my walk with God to keep a record of my prayers as well as journal the experience of how His Word was becoming real in my life.  It was truly an amazing account of inspiration and revelation. Very often I would re-read and remember with transforming clarity the redeeming power of Almighty God.

Many of the pages were stained with tears. The letters themselves often smudged and hurried as though they were literally pouring out of a broken heart. Some of the entries were harsh and angry. These were usually long and bewildered ramblings of times when I was confused and hurt by circumstances I could neither control nor understand. It was often in these very entries that my prayer would be most earnest. This was the place where my inability to comprehend or control would be released to the One who could.

In those first years of my salvation, God mercifully met me in my immaturity. He delivered detailed answers to my childlike prayers with such accuracy that I could not possibly avoid the connection. I began to pray with such expectation that I quite possibly borderlined on the presumptuous! As I read His Word and feasted on His goodness, I continued to see loved ones saved, broken bodies healed, and captive souls delivered. I began to believe I had learned the “formula for success” as it related to how we receive from God through prayer.

I was determined to be obedient, and to learn and grow as a disciple of Jesus Christ. I had been radically saved and I was completely sold out to the process of what it meant to become a “Christian”. I studied, I learned and I prayed. It became apparent to me that God’s Word was real not just because I believed some words written on a page, but because my life was transforming right before my very eyes! My husband, who had not been receptive of my salvation, and in fact had rejected the message entirely, had come to know Christ himself. Though the process of his enlightenment took many years, it groomed me to wait on the Lord, as nothing else could teach me.

Because I was completely convinced of my own personal responsibility, I was very internally focused. I experienced God as He related to me, my family and my circumstances. But as I started to realize I was just a small thread in the tapestry of God’s handiwork, I began to feel provoked by a sense of corporate accountability. We were all in this together. What was happening in my experience was happening all around me. Not only was I responsible to God for my walk with Him, but I was also accountable to those who walked beside me in their journey.

This revelation reminded me that my thoughts and motives were not only bare before God concerning my own circumstances, but they also were uncensored concerning those around me. It was powerful! I began to see my judgmental heart regarding the unanswered prayer of others. “Are they tithing?” I would think. Not always as a concern for their well-being, but often as a reason for their limited finances. “Obedience is key,” I would think in my heart; “If we would just obey the commandments of our Lord, then He would bless us accordingly.” It seemed simple enough, and Scriptural as well. “If we obey…Then He will release His promise.” My heart was critical and always looking for the reason that prayer might not be “working”.

Along the journey, God provided opportunities for me to connect with others through bible studies and home groups. Once again my sincere desire to be obedient and expect somewhat predictable results collided with the reality of our fallen world. Somehow in spite of my immaturity, I recognized the importance of loving one another, however awkward that may be to genuinely accomplish.

My strict desire to be accountable soon became bathed in compassion. I suffered alongside my grieving sisters as they faced difficult times. These women now belonged to me. They were not just abstractly related to me through the bigger scheme of things. Their sorrow was my sorrow. I was finally beginning to view the outcome of sin beyond the level of mere consequence. Could God require our obedience because of His righteousness, and yet still offer mercy in spite of our ignorance and rebellion? I sincerely hoped so as I prayed for their situations as I would for my own. These were circumstances that required more than simplistic formulas.

Although obedience always clears the conscience, it does not always avoid suffering. I became increasingly uncomfortable with the responsibility of ministering to others, yet I passionately desired to share what I was learning. God requires us to live before Him in holiness, and He also supplies the grace that enables us to do just that. Great is the mystery of godliness! Who can grasp such an awesome truth?

Ministry enabled me to see that I needed more than education. I needed an impartation of something beyond myself in order to be of any use at all. What seemed like a useful answer offered in sincerity, often felt like salt in the wound to the heart that was hurting.  I found that not everyone wants to get to the bottom of why things happen, as much as they want to know that you will stay alongside them while they’re dealing with the problem.

However, I still couldn’t dismiss the reality of God’s requirement to live holy and separate; to be responsible for our choices and accountable to one another. I couldn’t make sense of some of the messes that lay broken at the feet of the Church because of blatant sin. The damage of self-destruction seemed so unnecessary. Praying for some of these situations felt like expecting God to respond like a bail bondsman; these casual Christians might get out of this mess just in time to jump right back into another! I struggled with grace seemingly spent on the foolish while the obedient and faithful endured the silence of God.

I recalled watching helplessly as one dear friend faithfully resigned to the cancer that too quickly consumed her. A non smoker who died of lung cancer, who praised her God with her very last breath... her death felt excruciatingly unnecessary. While I ached to understand the ways of God, I was terrified that He might show me.

As I held my journal to my chest, I thought back to the all the miracles that I had personally witnessed throughout my faith journey. I had personally experienced the deliverance of my lifestyle choices, my fragile marriage was restored, unexpected checks came in the mail, jobs were granted, and so on. These were huge blessings to me at the time, but they were needed only because of the consequence of my own sin.  What would make God say yes to the repairing of a mistake clearly made as a sinful choice and say no to the prayer made by the faithful who are trying to live an obedient life? Why doesn’t “obedience” always work?

I decided the only way I could reconcile this thought was to assume something was wrong that I was not aware of. Hidden sin maybe? There must be some other “equation” only known to God.  “Besides,” I reasoned to myself, “The greater healing is certainly heaven, and it is better to have character formed than our future framed.” My sincere desire to comprehend things beyond me was at least pacified.

So I continued to pray, and I journaled. I beseeched heaven to respond to my needs and to the needs of those around me. God was faithful, although never predictable. He always answered, just not always the way I would have hoped. The longer I spent time in His presence, the greater my capacity grew to comprehend His goodness. However, the more I spent time with His people, the more they seemed to consume all that He had given. I existed between many of the rebellious, living on the blessings of grace, and many of the obedient, suffering in faith. I could not reconcile what I could not understand.   The evidence was in. I was severely disappointed.

Yet, I had to ask myself why. Was God not who He professed to be throughout the pages of my well-worn Bible? Had He not fulfilled His Word to me at least a thousand times? Was His power insufficient? Was it really God I was so dissatisfied with, or was it perhaps something else?

I looked again to the pages I had written.  In those first entries I had poured out my offerings of prayers to a God I barely knew. I thought of Him as the Righteous Judge, but I did not know Him yet as the Compassionate Redeemer. As my relationship with Him grew more intimate, the aspects of His character were unfolded before me. Little by little I began to trust His sovereignty and wisdom. The more God revealed Himself throughout the pages of my journal, the more uncovered I became in the light of His perfection.

As I finished reading the latest entry, I realized with prideful clarity that my disappointment did not lie with God, it fell fully on me. God had not changed. He did not need to. He did not need to learn form His mistakes, or humble Himself with apologies. He did not need to have His character formed or His motives challenged.  He was, is and will always be Creator, Sustainer, Perfector…God.

The trial was over. My soul had acquitted the defendant, and yet my heart found no satisfaction. I was still disappointed…in me. Was I the one who was always learning and yet never coming to the knowledge of the truth? Could I have escaped such a simple concept, that there is but One God, and I am not Him? Had my pursuit of discipleship blinded my ability to just follow Him?

I realized that the book that I held in my hand contained the prayers of gilded faith; unrealistic expectations that were coated with the brightness of ignorant assumptions. Before these prayers were offered up to God, I had somehow thought myself capable of provoking God to move based on my perspective of the situation!  My confession was revealing! God had allowed me to agonize through the frustration of this experience, in order to teach me something I would learn no other way.

In all my trying to comprehend the ways of God I found that the true cost of discipleship is surrender. I should want to obey the Lord because I love Him and trust His ways, not because I want something from Him, no matter how righteous or wonderful that thing may be.   And yes…I am strengthened through the hardship because I learn to depend on the truth that God does work all things together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. (Rom 8:28) Not everything is as it appears on the earth. Our prayers will one day be seen in heaven’s light and we will know for all eternity how gracious and merciful our Great God was to us all. The testimony of His faithfulness will be overwhelming!