The Pharisee

God’s been doing a number on me the past few days.  Part of what I had wrote in the blog post that vanished was about how God has been revealing to me that my prayers are not what he wants them to me.  The things that have been standing out to me over the past week in the podcasts I’ve been listening to have been about truly deeply feeling the prayers that I pray.  I had been listening and trying but it wasn’t until Friday morning did I really start to get it again.  And I say again because this is not the first time God has had to teach me this lesson, I’m thankful that He’s so patient with me.

So I spent the week half believing that the judge would do something but not really.  I’ve spent the last two months conscious that this can and does happen to me but trying to be pro-active to keep it away.  It’s the bitter, hard, unbelieving attitude that creeps in when you are disappointed over and over and over again.  I know I had wrote it in the blog but had also talked about it with a few friends back with our first court date how I felt like we would get to a point where it would be pushed off so many times that the excitement and anticipation would turn to bitterness and unbelief.  Try as I may have, it snuck in.

Thursday came and went and nothing, just like my unbelieving negative attitude had told me would happen.  I had emailed and asked for an up date since I had heard not one word and they said they would email the lawyer and ask.

Friday morning came and I spent another morning not far from my email hoping for some sort of anything.  This is what I got cut and pasted to me from the lawyer’s email “I will let you know when I hear anything.”  I. had. had. it.  I pounded my fist on the table and yelled at God.  See I had done this before to my husband (who I also did it too again before this little outburst, sorry honey!), I had done it with my friends.  I had written and deleted several emails that I wish I could send to everyone involved who I felt wasn’t doing there job but this time I let it out.  I was disappointed with God.  I screamed to him how I’m trying so hard to do everything for HIM, how I’m waking up praying, I’m spending my quiet time reading and listening to HIS word, how I’m fasting and giving things up for HIM, I’m doing bible study and small group for HIM and then…. i said it…….. YOU’RE NOT DOING ANYTHING FOR ME, I didn’t ask for all this money, though I’m thankful.  I asked for timing, I asked for my SON!!!!  (two side notes: #1 paper-pregnant hormones  are just as real as reguler-pregnant hormones so I could kill someone and get away with it ;) and #2 I wonder if any of my neighbors saw my 2 yr old tantrum through my window…. )

You know what I heard when I finally calmed down, stopped trying to let sermons and podcasts and empty words playing in the background fill me up?  “Pharisee.”  Ouch.

For those that don’t know, Pharisees where those in biblical times that wanted everyone to see what they were doing and made up all kinds of rules and if you followed those rules then you were somehow “holy”.  Then I heard “I do not delight in sacrifice, or offerings.  A broken and contrite heart I will not despise.”  This is straight from God’s word in Psalm 51.  I felt like He was saying, finally.  Finally you have decided to run to ME and be honest with ME about how you’re disappointed.  I know anyway but I’m a gentleman and I wait to be invited into your hurt and then I heal you.  Not with exactly what you want or thought would be, but with hope and peace that can only come from ME.  The sacrifice is nice and I will honor it but today when you’re sacrificing to only get something back out of it I am not pleased.  Today when you’re uttering the same little “Please bring RJ home” prayer whenever you want to turn to TV or food or friends or facebook for comfort, I don’t hear it because you don’t even think about it anymore.  My ways are not your ways (Isaiah 55:8) and that’s OK.  I will not despise your broken heart, I will heal it if you only trust to share it with me.

So now that I’ve bared my crazy once again to you I ask, is there something in your life that may be similar?  I’m not perfect but I am trying to do the Father’s will.  I get lost in it sometimes and lose my focus but thank God that He is so forgiving and so faithful to a brat such as me.

Whenever God decides for Ranjit to come home will be perfect.  I’m going to type and claim that today because I truly feel it and honestly my humanness and stupidity reign free other days when I don’t.  I actually truly feel that this will be the week we get the orders that He is legally our son.  If not, I will still praise you Lord.  Even then.