It Doesn’t Hurt to Ask
I thought I’d hidden
the desire of my heart
and buried it deep
within the dark
~
But God helped me see
asking’s not in vain
as He brought sweet comfort
to ease my pain
~
I then learned a lesson
about prayer at last
that I can fully trust God
and it doesn’t hurt to ask.
~
Wendy ❀ 2015
~
~
Have you ever longed for something–something you didn’t believe you had any real power to make happen? I’m thinking of the kind of wish you dared not give voice to. Would it be like a wish on a star that simply dissipates if confessed aloud?
It was like this for me about a special desire I’d had for years. I guess I’d never got over the disappointment of purchasing a losing ticket; that ticket worked my hopes up to a lather. It was my first and last play at the lottery; however, I soon adopted a biblical world view and lost any interest in gambling.
But I 
had taken my fear of risk to extreme.
Wasn’t it safer not to hope, not to ask, and not to dream? If I just pretended the desire wasn’t there, I could go on with life and avoid any pain or grief–so I thought. It turned out that a buried desire can still live and breathe and wield its influence over the bearer.
One day, I got out the shovel and dug it up. I gave myself permission to hope again. I was sitting in the rocking chair in my upstairs bedroom of a heritage home back in Victoria, and on my lap was a journal I had just entered a quote into.
It is easy for us to be defeated at the outset because we have been taught that everything in the universe is already set, and so things cannot be changed. We may gloomily feel this way, but the Bible does not teach that. The Bible pray-ers prayed as if their prayers could and would make an objective difference. The apostle Paul gladly announced that we are ‘colaborers with God’ (1 Cor. 3:9); that is, we are working with God to determine the outcome of events.
-Richard J. Foster
When I dug up that old desire, it became fresh and vibrant again, and I was finally receptive to my hope growing as expansive as God enabled it. I humbly let Him know that I was going to knock on His door for as long as it took or until He graciously let me know I should cease.
Believing that I did have some input into my future dreams set my faith aloft.
To pray is to change is another quote of Foster’s. It’s exactly what happened to me. Once my beseeching began, many changes happened in my life that I now see were all part of the answer to the prayer. So the “Whatever will be, will be” mantra that had been playing over and over in my heart was replaced by a belief that I would be heard, and possibly even answered in the affirmative. It was knowing that I would be listened to that seemed to empower my entreaties the most. If the answer was to be negative, then I would rely on His comfort.
Sounded like a win-win to me.
Twenty-two months later, after twelve years of infertility, I was lying down on a bed in the ultrasound room of my local hospital watching my unborn child waving his arm as if to say, “Hi Mom! He said yes.”
A longing fulfilled is sweet to the soul…
Proverbs 13:19
~
He settles the barren woman in her home
as a happy mother of children.
Praise the LORD.
Psalm 113:9
~
Prayerful Blessings ~ Wendy ❀
PS – I shared this post on my other blog in 2012.
But I wrote the poem recently.
I’ve got a new desire of my heart I’m now praying about.
~
Are you asking God for the desire of your heart?
It can’t hurt.
~
~
Advertisements Share this:
