I was out on a walk recently listening to a sermon that talked about asking God for things. The preacher told a story about a congregation who was desperately praying for rain. However, the pastor scolded them because they didn’t even have enough faith to bring an umbrella to Church with them. That night, I had a weird dream. It was one of those dreams that you know means something, but you aren’t sure what. I was a little freaked out. The next day, I was telling my friend about how I was freaked out, and she asked me why I get freaked out when God is potentially giving me the things I pray for. So this concept of preparing for the things I pray for has been on my heart as of late.
Every night, when I go to bed, I (selfishly I guess) pray for three things before I go to the Lord on behalf of others and thank Him for His blessings: I pray for my very-near future career path, my future husband, and for divine healing upon my body. However, I am not doing the proper preparation for these things. I pray for healing, but I don’t believe that this healing can occur. I have let the seeds of doubt and disbelief come into my mind, and I also am not doing enough research into possible leads for my healing. I know that the Lord can miraculously heal me if He wants, but if I don’t believe that He can, what is the point in asking? When it comes to my love life, I promise I am praying hard, but the minute someone wants to set me up, I run away screaming like a little girl. As for my future career, I have gotten better about belief and preparation, but it took me a while to get there. Whatever the situation may be, I seldom have the fervent prayer, coupled with belief that it takes. I rarely bring my umbrella, whatever my “umbrella” may be in a certain situation.
I want to also say that this is not just a personal thing. I think that as the body of Christ, sometimes we don’t bring our umbrellas. I am not here to ruffle any feathers, but one thing that has been on my heart is abortion. We pray for abortion to end, but are becoming foster parents and helping single/addict mothers during and after the pregnancy that they wanted to terminate but couldn’t? I know the Lord is against abortion, but I don’t see how we can stop at just being against it. We must carry our umbrellas and show the state that we are willing to take care of these children through fostering, adoption, or our time in general. It is our duty as Christians. There are other examples, but this is the one in particular that I have been burdened about lately. I guess in this case we are praying for rain but haven’t yet planted the seeds to be sown.
Whatever situation we are in in life, it is so important to be spiritually prepared. I know that we often just say a prayer without any meaning to it. I am the queen of this (but I am working so hard on it). I would encourage you in whatever situation you are in to truly believe in and prepare for the things you pray for. This is not saying that God will give you everything you want. Trust me, you don’t want that. But we must prepare for the things that are important to us and to other people. Jesus got on to His disciples in Matthew 17:20, saying that nothing would be impossible to them if they had faith the size of a mustard seed. Nothing is impossible to our God, but the least we can do is show Him that we have a little faith by bringing our umbrella.
Puri-tee 