The Value of Struggle

 

By: Jana Greene

You have value to God and to the world He made. There is no question about it. You may not feel very valuable (I don’t either sometimes) but your worth cannot even be measured.

I get lazy with prayer, and there are times (honesty alert!) I don’t pray for a thing like I should because I am secretly afraid of being disappointed in the outcome. In my own wisdom, which is exceedingly limited, I just don’t see a way for the thing to work out, so I don’t even bother asking.

But God says ask anyway, and keep asking.

Why would He encourage that? Clearly everyone’s prayers don’t always get answered or else we’d have a populace of lottery winners and a complete deficit of sickness and suffering in the world.

Sounds wonderful on the surface, but you’ve got to wonder how our spirits would fare; what our character would look like.

This morning, I heard from Him about it. While I am already in bed trying to figure out how to fix the whole damn world (or at least my little corner of it) and then asking God for help in fixing it.

But it’s not mine to fix, He reminded me.

We live in a world that rewards our expectations. It is a vending machine, instant gratification society and we get upset when even the smallest things don’t go our way.

But we’ve got to stop asking God to jump, and expecting Him to ask us “how high?” We do that, or at least I do.

I want to orchestrate the outcome of my prayer petitions to Abba in order to see something or someone I care about ‘turn out’ a certain way.

That expectation – that He somehow needs our direction in the matter we bring to Him –  takes His sovereignty out of the equation. And His sovereignty is everything.

God doesn’t get our orders wrong.

He says to pray unceasingly, but I don’t think His command to do so is to get everything we want. I think maybe we are to pray unceasingly until God changes our hearts about what we want.

Maybe the thing that is haunting your spirit and demanding Holy resolution has value.

Maybe the experience – and your victory over it – will be used to help someone desperate in the future. I’ve seen that play out thousands of times in my own life. In looking back, God wasn’t ignoring my plea, but had a purpose in that struggle to benefit someone else.

‘Cause it’s not all about me.

Maybe your acceptance of a heavy situation has finally caused you to lay it down and God is working with your spirit on the skill of NOT picking it back up.

Maybe an answer to prayer looks NOTHING like you imagined, but it’s an answer nonetheless.

Have faith that the Father who loves and values you is trustworthy in every area, seen and unseen. Have faith that He is still listening and is working all things to the good for those who love Him. Even when all rational thought and preconceived notion tells you otherwise.

(I’m preaching to myself here, too.)

Our battles are fought and won in the Heavenly realms and we don’t always get to take home the tangible souvenirs.

Ask Him for a faith big enough to believe He knows how high to jump. Be honest in telling him you are afraid to be disappointed.

Bother to ask. And keep asking.

But consider the value in the prayers that FEEL unanswered. We see through a glass darkly here, this side of the Kingdom.

God wastes no hurt. And always answers prayers. In His time, and to His perfect and pleasing will.

He’s got this. He’s got YOU.

 

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” – 2 Corinthians 12:9