Just Some Thoughts

We have been blessed to have avoided the flu bug that went around recently. Was it the dreaded H1N1? Seasonal flu? Who knows. I do know that our schools experienced insanely high numbers of absences just a few weeks ago.

I am thankful that we did not get the flu. However. The cold that we passed around our family was awful. It lingered for weeks, just making everybody feel miserable. On top of not feeling well, our house was, well, not pretty. Well, pretty trashed, maybe. It was not good. Not good at all.

Today I woke up feeling good! And I realized, at 11, when I had accomplished quite a bit, that I have been sick for the last 3 weeks! This was an amazing revelation. I had not once considered that I was sick and needed to rest and that the house would get put back together when I felt well again. I had been feeling like a failure for not being able to keep a clean house.

What a relief it was to let go of that feeling of failure. Why, oh why, didn't I do it sooner?

And now that I am back to feeling well, another member of the family has fallen ill.

My dryer.

He's not well. Of all the chores that I accomplished today, laundry was not one of them. I managed to wash 2 loads of laundry. But the first load is still in the dryer. I vacuumed and checked the outside vent tonight after Awanas and now (after I blog, of course) I will see whether or not my poor dryer is feeling up to drying my towels.

Several quick prayers were said today that went something like this, "God, please don't let my dryer die!" And sometimes just "God please?" It got me thinking about prayer. There's not a thing wrong with those quick emergency prayers and God wants us to come to Him with everything, even small things. But is that all my prayer life is?

There have been seasons of my life when that was the only communication I had with God. My relationship with Him was nothing more than me running to Him when something went wrong. He gave me a picture of my prayer life years ago during one of those seasons.

I was watering one of my houseplants. I think I only had 2 of them (for reasons you will know in just a moment). I had noticed it was wilting, so I filled a large cup with water and fed my starving plant. And that was the only time I ever watered my plants...when they began to wither. And the truth is, they were starving even before I could see them withering. Just like my prayer life. Those plants needed to be watered daily not just when I could see them withering. I needed communication with my God daily (or hourly!) not just when something went wrong.

And my communication needed to be so much more than just simply a wish list. He taught us how to pray in Matthew 6:9-13.

⁹"This, then, is how you should pray:
" 'Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
¹⁰your kingdom come,
your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
¹¹Give us today our daily bread.
¹²Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
¹³And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.'

We need to praise Him. We need to thank Him. We need to confess our sins and seek forgiveness. We need to seek His will. And we need to come to Him with our needs.

If we only come to Him with our needs, do we really have a relationship with Him?


UPDATE: My dryer is alive and well! Thank you God! And apparently I was very tired last night when I wrote this post..."Just Some Thoughts"? That's the best title I could come up with? I love coming up with titles. I could have done better. Oh, well.