A change of pace

I have been griping in my head these past few weeks about not having done any physical labor of any sort…and envying what the folks are doing down in Peru.  I must confess my heart was not in the right place, and I kept wandering, what if God wanted me to go down there and I just didn’t listen?

Let me just say, before I go on, that God is a genius.  Well, yes, he created the world, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, love, man, yadda yadda yadda.  But let me expound on my obvious statement.

I swear the man upstairs catches me off-guard. 

A lot of times I’ll pray for things that I think he will answer.   You know, help my mom recover from knee surgery, calm my friends whose family in Tabasco are dealing with a huge flood, teach me something on the field today, bless this food, help me sleep.  The usual.

But after this week, I am convinced God just has a scanner on my brain that prints every thought regarding Him as prayer, whether I actually address him in prayer or not.  

I was hoping a couple of weeks ago, like I said, that we would actually construct something down here, or help people out with some manual labor.  It was just sort of a longing for something other than walking to peoples houses and sitting.  Or visiting the jail and sitting.  This is the ultimate torture for someone active like me who is always running, dancing, singing, or doing someting spazzy of the like.  I sort of made a wish in my head at the time, if you would call it that.

Lo and behold, I found myself all last week wheeling wet concrete, painting walls, shoveling trenches, digging dirt, laying rebar, and nailing spikes in the ground (insert Tool Time grunt here).  We worked on construction around the church all last week, including the guys’ dormitory wing.  It looks fantabulous.

Another thing that surprises me about the nature of prayer is how sporadic the answers tend to be.  Sometimes we wait like Abraham (the dude was like, 100 when he and Sarah had their promised child, Isaac).  Sometimes I’ll pray an intercessory prayer for someone’s health, family relationships, or a marriage and *poof* the prayer is answered the next time we see them. 

This week, this couple we know, Adolfo and Laura (21 and 16 years old!) have begun to repair their marriage that was on hiatus.  Adolfo is now on the wagon (not drinking anymore) and they both showed up to our church last night.  In addition, a lady in colonia Estrella named Erica (she is a nonbeliever) said that after her prayer with us, a man dressed in white surrounded by angels (she knew this was God) told her to join him, that he will never leave her, and that she should come to our church on Sunday. 

God hears our hearts, even if they are not in prayer.  Thanks to Him that he can calm my restless one, and that he’s going to keep at it.