At the beginning of my day, I prayed two very sincere prayers.
I began by recognizing before God that on the days I don’t realize I need Him – those are the days I need Him the most.
And I asked Him to help me to keep my heart in perfect alignment with His purposes. That was prayer number one.
I then asked Him for help with a specific task I had to accomplish during my day. That was prayer number two.
He answered my prayer in a very unexpected way.
I bombed my task badly. I was very disappointed in myself, and I was embarrassed because I thought I had it. I thought I had done everything I needed to do to succeed in my task, but when it came down to the moment, there I was failing, in front of everyone.
As I recovered from my disappointment, I asked myself what it was that made me upset, specifically, and I realized that it was true that I was embarrassed to fail in front of others, and it was true that I was disappointed that my preparation was not enough, but the thing that upset me the most was my embarrassment in my own eyes.
Is that weird?
I realized that my failure, this momentary failure, informed my own self-image that I was lacking in an area I thought I had figured out. And it made me kind of mad. Pride shows up in all kinds of ways.
And then I saw that my Father had answered my first prayer by disregarding my second prayer. He answered my prayer to bring me into better alignment with His purposes by allowing me to fall on my face and bring to light my own pride – pride that gets in the way of being completely obedient to the voice of the Lord.
Maybe it was on purpose. Pretty sure it was on purpose.
Why? Because He loves me, and the Lord chastens those He loves. More specifically, He chastens those who are His children. (Hebrews 12:5-6)
As with the chastening of any good parent, the discipline is painful but important. If I pray and ask the Lord to help my heart and my life to stay in alignment with His purposes. And if the Lord sees (and he sees everything) that I have something in me that is in the way of His answering that prayer. And if that prayer is in His will, then as a loving Father, He must do the painful thing, in order to bring about the result He desires in me.
And I’m sure He will have to do it a lot more, in order for me to become who He means for me to be.
As I lick my wounds this afternoon, I am comforted by this knowledge – that the Father counts me among His own. This is why He helps me to see the places in me that I haven’t turned over to Him, the pride that I try to hang on to, and the things I may have tucked away in a secret closet of my heart that I may not even remember.
He knows me, better than I know myself.
He sees me, with all my faults and complete failings.
And He covers my sins in His blood and sees me as His own dear child.
There is not a greater comfort than this.
