If you don't know my friend Ally Vesterfelt, you need to. She is genuine and passionate, and a beautifully honest writer. She's also the managing editor of Prodigal Magazine, one of my favorite corners of the Internet. I appreciate the ways Ally embraces the "grit" in life and invites God to meet her there.
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This last year I prayed big.
It started because I read a book by Mark Batterson called The Circle Maker. The thought of praying the way he prayed (persistently, for specific things) had never really occurred to me.
Usually, I liked to keep my prayers small and manageable.
I didn't want it to seem like I was being greedy or anything.
But when I read Batterson's book I started to see how praying for things I actually wanted (regardless if they were big or small) wasn't being selfish, it was just being honest — and being honest was what prayer was really about, a dynamic, authentic conversation with God.
So my prayers went from being really "spiritual" all the time to sometimes not-so-much.
I would pray for things like a second bookshelf to house my growing collection. I would pray for warm weather for an outdoor picnic with my husband. I would pray for friendship with a person in a similar stage of life.
Maybe that sounds elementary, but for me it was ground-breaking.
Shocking, actually.
I would pray for a specific need to be met by a specific day, and sure enough, it would be. Or I would pray for something that wasn't a need, that was just a luxury, and many times I would get the gift I had asked for.
But there was one prayer I prayed that wasn't answered.
Granted, it was a big prayer. A little far-fetched even. One of those that, when you write it down, you think to yourself: I'd like to see you take on this one, God.
The request had to do with a specific financial debt I owed. I wanted it to be paid off by the end of the year.
So I wrote down the prayer and the specific number, just as I had been doing before. I started making payments whenever I had extra cash, or money left over in a particular budget. For a while, I was really vigilant about it. I prayed about it every day, and the energy to conquer the debt consumed my mind.
But after a few months the prayer slipped to the back of my journal, and while I did occasionally pray that the debt would be paid by the date I had set, I didn't think about it with nearly the conviction I had when I first started.
So when the end of the year came, and the debt wasn't paid off, I cringed a little.
Not because God hadn't given me what I had asked for, but because He had reminded me that,
while He is a God who hears me and cares about what I want, he has something as much to teach me by saying "no" as he does by saying "yes."
I know this, but sometimes I live like I don't know it.
In fact, sometimes I think this is what kept me from praying "big" prayers in the first place. I was worried that if I didn't say it right, or if my heart wasn't in exactly the right place, I would never get what I asked for.
And when I act like prayer is about getting what I ask for, I miss the point altogether.
It's okay to want something (even admit we want it) and still not have it.
The second thing I learned was that, when it comes to what I have and what I don't have, I am a co-creator with God. God has more resources than I do, more grace, more wisdom, and far more patience — but I can't expect Him to answer prayers I am not willing to answer myself.
I have to be willing to make the sacrifices, fork over the cash, go visit the friend, reach out to the person in need, stay up all night working —
All the while praying for God to fill in the gaps.
Many times in my life God has answered prayers i didn't know how to pray, or that I couldn't have dreamed up in a million years. Other times I have begged him for things, laid everything on the line, and he has said "no," or worse, been silent.
There is no reward/payoff system, no formula we can use to make prayer "work," for us, to help get us what we want.
But I think that's actually the point I'm trying to make.
That prayer is its own reward, and that as my prayers change, I change with them.
And for now that is enough.
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Allison is a writer, managing editor of Prodigal Magazine and author of Packing Light: Thoughts on Living Life with Less Baggage (Moody, 2013). She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota with her husband Darrell. You can follow her daily on Twitter or Facebook.
How do you handle God's "no"s or silences?
Sometimes -- more often than I'd like to admit -- that old crazy-making feeling comes back.
And I feel as though I must be crazy because there's no other explanation possible.