Have you ever prayed and prayed for someone until you felt you could pray no more? One such person stands out in my mind. I prayed and prayed for this person. Nothing happened. I prayed some more. Things seemed worse. PLEASE GOD! I prayed more! Still, I could see no results. One day I felt especially frustrated with the waiting and with what my eyes were seeing. “That’s it!” I told God, “You can have them. I’m done! I’m through praying!’ I know this sound cold. But it had been years, and I was frustrated, tired, and I was done. It wasn’t two weeks later that this friend was on their knees before the Lord. They were so happy to call and tell me about their repentance. I was thrilled for them and for the Lord, but in the back of my mind, all I could think was, “Wow, God, You weren’t waiting for them, You were waiting for me.” I looked in the mirror and slapped my own face! When did I decide that my prayers were a work that should be rewarded? When did I look for God to honor ‘my timing?’ And when did I forget the gift that it is to pray for one of His children?
Maybe you have that friend or maybe you have that child or family member. One of the hardest things in this life is to let go of our loved ones and give God the wheel. But sometimes we have to get ourselves out of the way so God can do His work! Being a parent is an especially difficult test of our faith. We want to make everything easy for our children. We want them to have our lifetime of wisdom straight out of the womb. So, we pray, pray and pray and pray, thinking if we pray the right words or pray often enough God will hear our words and fill our children and make their lives go just the way we want them to. Am I praying in faith? Am I trusting God with His plan or asking Him to pull off my Plan?
I am encouraged by the story of Moses. When Pharaoh ordered all the baby boys to be executed, his mom had an unimaginable decision to make. She chose to trust God. She made a basket of bulrushes and covered it in pitch and tar for protection, then placed her helpless baby inside and set him on the water. I don’t know if I could let go like that. Water represented ‘chaos’ to the Jews. They were all familiar with the stories of Noah and the destruction of the earth. Moses’ name means “out of the water.” The true word for this basket made of those bulrushes is ‘ark!’ She covered that basket with protection the way we cover our children with prayer and as she laid that ark in the middle of the bulrushes along the river, she trusted God to save her son the same way He’d saved Noah. She was in an impossible place and she trusted God to take care of them all. And He did.
When we ‘let go and let God’ He does more than we could ever dream of. God took care of Moses, but there’s more! He also took care of his mother. She got to continue to nourish and teach him and hold him until he got older. (And Pharaoh’s daughter paid her for it!) Can you imagine the prayers she prayed over him as she held his small body? Don’t you know she prayed with thanksgiving? But God had much bigger plans than mom could have ever thought of! God used Moses to save an entire nation. His righteousness and trust in God helped continue God’s plan of salvation. Maybe the trust of his mother helped set that faith in place.
What, by faith, do you need to place in your basket? Who do you need to cover in the protection of prayer and then let them go into the water? Give that basket to God. Go ahead and give Him thanks as you drop it in the water! He’ll do more with it than you and I could ever dream up or imagine. When we put our worries into the hands of the Potter, He makes something beautiful. The same God that parted the seas for Moses is working for you and me. He can handle the chaos that grips your world. He does things in His own time. He is trustworthy, mighty and good. He is a Promise Keeper. Let that rest in your heart today and… Be Blessed.
