Patience and Prayer.

One of my mother's favorite things to say to me while I was growing up was, "You were born impatient (I was 5 weeks premature) and you haven't changed a bit!"  Although I certainly have a lot more patience than when I was a kid, it's still not nearly enough.

Oh, how I love instantaneous results.  Things falling into place.  Ducks in a row.  I's dotted.  T's crossed.  To-do lists checked off.  Everything tied up with a pretty bow.  Unfortunately, that's not how life (and this journey in particular) work.

If I look back over the last month, there have been amazing and numerous answers to prayer.  We've blogged about the biggies (house, car, becoming CRWM missionaries).  We've also officially received the kids' passports, had a successful first fundraiser, did a good job preparing for our upcoming garage sale (Saturday, 9-3!), and have a lot of committed prayer partners.

Despite all that, I want more.  A lot more.  I want a renter for our house...NOW!  I want to be on the CRWM website...NOW!  I want plane reservations...NOW!  Health insurance, banking, furniture, full ministry support....NOW!  I don't want problems, challenges or delays whatsover.

I often wonder what God must feel in listening to my outpourings of frustration, which, honestly, is akin to a temper tantrum at times.  Thankfully, He has infinitely more patience than I do.  He is a loving Father who always listens, and (unlike this impatient earthly mother), never loses his temper with us.  He encourages all communication with Him, including our cries of anguish and our impatient demands.  He encourages relationship with us, and takes joy in our communion with Him at whatever point we're at. 

I've been reading the excellent book, Prayer, by Philip Yancey, and have been gleaning a lot of great information from that.  Yancey struggles with a lot of the same questions that many of us do:  "If God already knows everything, why bother praying?"  "If God  knows the plan for our life, what's the point in asking for something to change?"

Although I'm not finished with the book yet, I believe Yancey says that the primary purpose of prayer is relationship.  The best way to grow a human relationship is to talk...a lot...about everything.  And so too with God.

So despite the fact that God already knows how everything's going to turn out, I'm going to keep crying out for immediate answers.  And perhaps be given a greater measure of patience in the process.