Ask

Lucy,

I've been reading a book about prayer. Some of the men at church recommended it. I honestly expected a more detached approach. I have been pleasantly surprised. Not just with the author's writing style, but also with the things that I learn.

The chapter today can be summed up in one word - ask. When Vania was young, I made a conscious decision to give her what she asked for if there wasn't a reason for saying no. This was before she could speak. I watched her get so frustrated trying to communicate. Her physical limitations held her back. It occured to me that she could very easily fall into feeling helpless.

I wanted Vania to experience a feeling of power over her world. I wanted her to learn hope. I taught her to ask.

I use the word ask loosely in this context. For a while, ask meant point and grunt. Even now, ask can be more of a statement than a question. The form of asking isn't important. The heart of asking is.

Lucy, don't you deserve the same power over your world? Why didn't you ask? I don't mean that as an accusation. I mean it as a legitimate question, what stopped you from asking?

I would guess that it boils down to shame and control. Our brains (mine included) love excuses. God would never give me that. I'm just being selfish. Or I deserve... Asking takes humility. The very act of iasking acknowledges that someone has something we need and the power to withhold it. We fear power because we don't trust. 

Ironically, trust also takes humility. I know they can hurt me. I am trusting they won't. Our experience in this world tells me to expect to get hurt. That's why God is so big on forgiveness. He acknowledges that pain is real, and also acknowledges it isn't supposed to be this way. There is more than this world. He is more than this world.

Do you remember in Spring Hill, the lid on my box of tools was left open to the rain? Several of them rusted from the water. I remember it because it was one of the very few times I punished you. The rarity of it is a good thing. The punishment was cleaning the rust off those tools. I suspect that you internalized the embarrassment that you felt. I do the same thing. 

What happened to our relationship after that? When shame stays inside, it rots. When it rots, it becomes bitterness. Bitterness eats its host, like a virus. This is a tiny example of our relationship with God.

Coming to Him exposes our shame. And coming to Him also wipes our shame away - after we face it. God even helps me through that. Start to finish, it is all His work. I just have to get out of His way. Somehow, even that is hard. 

When Uncle Scott and I would fight, Grandmom always said "what would our family be like if your dad and I treated each other that way?" It never stopped Uncle Scott and I. We still fought. But that satyed with me. It's how I learned to look at relationships. 

Ask yourself honestly, why do you want to fight? I know the excuses. They're not the truth. Lucy, I can only speak to my own heart. I can tell you about my struggles and what I think, if you ask. You have to find your own. No one knows you better than the God who loved you enough to bring you into a universe that He created for you. 

I don't understand how God manages a crowd of humanity and still involves Himself in my everyday life. Out of a crowd of millions or billions, He still knows me. Better than I know me. And while He has this big huge plan for all of eternity, He is still in each moment just with me alone. And you, and Grandmom, and Pop-pop, etc..