456. Celebrating God's Grace, Meeting God in Prayer

God honors our honest prayers and meets us where our faith is. Join our newest host, Julie Harwick, as she shares wisdom for Celebrating God's Grace in prayer.

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Welcome to Celebrating God’s Grace, a Women World Leaders podcast. I’m your host, Julie Harwick. Thank you for joining me today as we celebrate God’s grace in our lives, in this ministry and around the world. I’m new to the Women World Leaders podcast and I am so thankful and excited to have an opportunity to share what God, in His grace, has been teaching me.

I began a personal relationship with Jesus Christ at the tender age of six.  At my very first after school Good News Club meeting in the fall of first grade, I heard that God was offering me the free gift of salvation and heaven and all I had to do was tell Him I knew I needed it and I wanted it. That sounded like the best deal ever to me, so why wouldn’t I take it? I repeated the words she told us to pray if we wanted to receive the gift of Jesus.  And that began a lifetime of communicating with God through prayer.

Because I came to faith at such an early age, I developed a somewhat childish concept of prayer.  Subconsciously, God seemed a little like Santa Claus.  After all, He saw me when I was sleeping and when I was awake and He knew if I’d been bad or good…well, that’s what the song said anyway. I made a list for Santa once a year, but I had a list for God every night before I went to sleep. That idea was sort of reinforced at church when we’d go around the table at Sunday School and the teacher would ask us if we had any prayer requests. We prayed for sick grandmas and pets who were missing and that we’d do well on tests we had at school.  The person who led the prayer would work through the list, asking God to intervene on our behalf and throwing at least a little bit of gratitude His way as well.  

Although my method of praying may have been childish, I believe God honored it.  My faith was real and I wasn’t just praying because I’d been taught to.  I knew that I needed God’s help and direction and that only He had the power to meet all my needs.  As I grew older, I began to pray about more serious issues.  At 13 I began to pray about the boys I would date and the man I would one day marry. I am convinced that God absolutely honored that prayer because he took me through 4 reasonably long high school romances which all ended amicably and without drama and brought me my husband of 38 years in a miraculous way. I prayed about what college to attend, what to major in and what jobs to take and I firmly believe God led me through all of it.

Just before I turned 16, God began to expand my concept of prayer.  I saw a presentation at church about a summer missions opportunity for teenagers. I couldn’t stop thinking about it and began to believe God might be calling me to do it. Initially I didn’t think I should because I already felt the pressure of college tuition looming before me.  The babysitting money I was able to earn didn’t amount to much and I knew I needed to start working the day I turned 16 so that I would be able to afford a private Christian college. But for the first time, I felt God was speaking to me. I sensed He was saying, “you give Me this summer and I’ll provide what you need when the time comes. So, in faith, I submitted my application and set about raising support. This experience turned out to be a pivotal time in my life in many ways. I had never been away from home for more than a week and I was going to spend the next 10 weeks surrounded by strangers and foreigners.    Boot camp turned out to be more than I had bargained for. It was quite like a military boot camp. We slept in tents in the Florida wetlands.  We literally had to wear high top hiking boots everywhere – including the swimming hole. We bathed and did laundry in a lake, ate all our meals sitting on logs outside and worst of all, we had to run an obstacle course every morning at dawn. That obstacle course lived up to its name because it was a major obstacle for me. Although I liked playing sports, I was never had the ability to go along with the interest. I was extremely slow, always among the last 3 or 4 to be chosen when the gym teachers opted to afflict us with this humiliating method of splitting into teams. The obstacle course involved a lot of running, swinging on ropes, agility and climbing. I began falling behind my teammates within the first 4 or 5 minutes and I was gasping for air as I approached the final obstacle. It was an 8-foot wall with absolutely nothing to grab onto but the hands of the two guys who sat on top of it.  How they got up there, I’ll never know because they had been straddling the top for quite a while by the time I got there. They leaned down, each grabbed one of my hands and my job was to pull my legs up until they were perpendicular to the wall and walk up that wall until I could throw a leg over.  Sounds simple enough, right? Apparently, it was simple for the rest of my teammates, but my muddy, slimy boots paired with my near total exhaustion and general lack of athletic coordination made it nearly impossible. On maybe 2 occasions I defied the odds and was able to position myself correctly and scramble up as expected, every other time I would start to climb and have my boots just slide back down that wall. At first, the guys on top were encouraging, but as they struggled to pull my 105 lbs. up and over that blasted wall day after day, their encouragement turned to resentment. On the way to breakfast one day I overheard them talking about my lack of ability in frustrated, disparaging terms. At this point the loneliness and homesickness were almost more than I could take. During my quiet time after breakfast I cried out to God in a way I never had before. Bitter tears ran down my face as I reminded Him that this was His idea, not mine and that He had promised to never leave or forsake me, but I felt completely alone. As I opened my bible, my eyes fell on Psalm 20:7 “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.” It may have been a stretch of interpretation, but God planted the idea in my mind that although my teammates had the natural ability to run that obstacle course like a horse, I didn’t need to rely on my own strength or ability. As I trusted in Him, He would enable me to do what He wanted me to do and overcome any obstacle. It was the first time I remember God speaking to me directly through His word.  Out of desperation, I had freely admitted my own inability to do anything about my situation and I got brutally honest with God.  I might even dare to say I got mad.  But He didn’t strike me dead.  He answered me directly. My take away from this encounter was God honors honest prayers and He’s not afraid of emotion.

There’s an account in Mark chapter 9 where the father of a demon possessed boy asks Jesus to heal his son. It’s obvious that the man is in a desperate situation and recognizes his own inability to help his son. He’s only heard about Jesus’ power though and doesn’t really know if Jesus can help him or not. The disciples have already tried to help the boy and failed. Although Jesus has just expressed His frustration at the lack of faith among an unbelieving generation, the man asks, “if you can do anything, take pity and help us.”  “If you can,” Jesus replies. “Everything is possible for one who believes.”  I love the honesty of the man’s response.  “I do believe,” he begins and then admits, “help me overcome my unbelief.” We can and should be honest in our prayers.  If you’re struggling to believe, don’t try to “fake it ‘til you make it.” God already knows your heart and would much prefer to hear, “help my unbelief.”  I think God delights to answer prayers like that.  We admit our lack of faith and dependence on Him to grow it and He does what only He can do and brings us to a whole new level of faith.

God grew my faith in many ways during that summer.  I never did learn to climb that wall, but I got to know the two guys who sat on top. As they got to know me, they recognized that I was really trying and they learned that we all have different strengths and weaknesses.  I made many close friends and learned the value of hard, physical work and God did provide what I needed when it was time for college. Most importantly, I began a deeper, more honest type of communication with God.

Another biblical account that has confirmed to me that God appreciates honest prayer is found in 2 Kings:19. Hezekiah, King of Judah trusted in the Lord. Chapter 18 says that there was no one like him among the kings of Judah because he held fast to the Lord. In Chapter 19 Judah is facing an attack from Assyrian troops that far outnumber their own troops in size and strength. The Assyrians had already conquered many of the surrounding countries including Israel. The Assyrian king sent a letter demanding Judah’s surrender and reminding Hezekiah of all the other countries who had called on their gods to deliver them but could not stand against the Assyrians. From a human perspective, Judah didn’t stand a chance and Hezekiah knew it.  And here’s what I love about this story.  Hezekiah went straight to the temple and spread the threatening letter out before the Lord.  It’s like he’s laying all his cards on the table, saying here’s the situation and I’m helpless to protect my people from our enemies. Humility was not a trait that came naturally to kings of his day, but he made no effort to disguise his fear or lack of confidence in his armies’ capabilities. Instead, he openly recognized the only source of their deliverance by saying, “Now, Lord our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone, Lord are God.” The prophet Isaiah gave Hezekiah God’s response, saying, “I have heard your prayer.” He prophesied against the king of Assyria and promised that he would not enter the city. That night, the angel of the Lord struck down 185,000 in the Assyrian camp causing them to withdraw and never threaten Hezekiah again.  

In spite of all God has taught me about praying honestly and recognizing my own weakness, I still find it easy to lapse back into those immature wish list prayers. Don’t get me wrong. He wants us to bring our concerns and desires to Him, but He is not Santa Claus. Prayer should be a conversation, not a recitation of everything I need Him to do on my behalf. That means taking time to listen and worship and just enjoy being in His presence. I find it easier to do this when I’m outdoors. I love nothing more than to sit outside in my yard overlooking beautiful live oaks and grassy fields. Sometimes I close my eyes and just focus on what I hear: the bird songs, the nearby rooster crowing and the sound of leaves rustling in the breeze.  It’s the best way I’ve found to follow the command of Psalm 46:10 “Be still and know that I am God.” Stillness can be so difficult to achieve with so many demands on our time. That’s why communicating with God is the first thing on my daily agenda.  If I don’t make time for it early in the day, life will take over and it’s doubtful that I’ll be able to make the time to be still. Some people have an easier time getting quiet before Him at night when all the tasks of the day have been completed. The where and the when are not nearly as important as the how. You can probably tell when someone is in a hurry to wrap up a conversation with you, because you don’t really feel like you have their full attention or that you’re really very important to them in this moment.  How much more is the God who created us able to recognize when our hearts aren’t really in our prayer. Rather than forcing ourselves to focus enough to get through a list of requests, I think He might prefer that we just say, “God, I feel so harried and distracted.  Would you just give me your peace and enable me to calm down and just sit here with you, even if I can’t put two words together.”  He already knows the burdens that are on your heart whether you’re able to verbalize them or not.  Just being with Him is often far more important than any words you may speak.  Beginning a conversation with Him from that perspective is quite different from working  through a wish list.

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