Please Speak Clearly, Lord, I Have Children.

Seems like an odd title for a blog post, doesn't it? I just thought I would use it for a title since it seems that I have ended every prayer I've prayed over these last few weeks with these exact words.

Am I alone? Or have all the mother's and father's out there breathed these very same words? Can I get a whatwhat?

Isn't it funny how not only our life changes when we have children, but so do our prayers?

My prayers used to consist of three things:
1. Me
2. Me
3. That God would seek vengeance on people that made me mad.

Then I got married, and my prayers changed to:
1. Me
2. Me
3. That God would deliver the Attorney General from all his insufficiencies and how they adversely affected...you got it...me.

I like to think that over the years my prayers have grown, as have I. I like to think that as my relationship with Christ grows and deepens, so does my prayer life. My hope is that they aren't as whiney, self-focused, whiney. Or as whiney. But that maybe - on a good day - they focus on the things of real importance: His faithfulness, His glory and His ability to use me (as risky as an endeavor as this probably is to Him) in whatever way He may choose.

Over the past several months the Attorney General and I have been focused on one particular area of prayer - a personal area for our family, and it's here that I've found myself saying those infamous words, "Speak clearly Lord, I have children." Sometimes I re-phrase it, "Please make sure I don't miss what it is you're doing Lord, remember I have kids to think about." I've even been known to paraphrase when I'm in a real hurry, "I can't hear you!! Help! What if I screw my kids up???"

Say it any way you want, He hears it all the same.

And He knows.

Truth is, He cares more about my children than even I do; more about their welfare, their happiness, their future. My concern may be greater than His, but His "ways" have mine beat by a mile.

So let this short, inconsequential blog post be of some comfort to you today. You're not the only one who's uttered a prayer under your breath that you desperately need to hear God clearly for fear that your choices will affect the lives of those you love. It's every parent's personal predicament: Oh, Lord, may your words be as clear as writing on the wall lest I screw up my children's lives and make them wish they had been born to circus folk.

See, my friend? You're not alone.

Scripture reminds us of this...

Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good. (Romans 8:26, The Message Bible)

May you be reminded today that nothing you are concerned about - not anything or anyone, not any decision or any condition - has gone unnoticed. He knows every detail of our lives, even the little ones that run around in their glorious 2 year old nakedness, and He is working it into something good. Something great. Something glorious.

Please speak clearly, Lord, I have children.