Random Thought Thursday: Answered Prayers

What time is it: 750A

Where am I: At the kitchen table in my work out clothes, which at this point is more a hope than an absolute.

Listening to: The boys shrill like girls in the other room accompanied by the Phineas and Ferb CD.  Summer has come with an extra injection of energy and all around goofiness and I am about to send them outside to run laps.

Last ate: Plain yogurt sprinkled with All Bran and walnuts, topped with a little honey, and (of course) coffee

Thoughts:  I don't know if it's summer or that this week started off with the Great Flood of 2010 but I'm feeling a bit out of schedule.  It's likely summer, I'm sure.  But it appears this out of schedule-ness has infiltrated my blogging as well.  Longest silence I've had since inception.

When I was child, or maybe a teenager, I remember vexing when I'd pray for something and would have what seemed to be an answer present itself.  I would question myself into total indecision wondering if the opportunity at hand was really the answer to prayer or a temptation in masquerade.  After all, I would remind myself, can't the devil hear my prayers too?  So was satan presenting something that would eventually lead me off course with what seemed like a good choice.

Four months ago I prayed one of those hard prayers.  I prayed God- show me what the purpose for this part of my life is.  What is it that you want me to be about right now?

I mean I have a great family and career.  I'm involved in ministry at my church and life has been pretty easy going for the last year.  And to whom much is given- so why has he given?  What is he expecting of my in return?

Currently there is an opportunity, one that I'd put out of mind as an option a few years ago when it initially surfaced, that seems to be an answer to that prayer- a mission on my heart that feels so hard to deny.  And still this ministry, this heart-mission, is not one that I'm rushing towards with open arms.  It's one I take one timid step towards and two large questioning steps back from.

So is this trepidation on my part- this analyzing every situation of my day to see how this heart-mission would effect __________, is it some sort of proof that this is good and an opportunity for service.  Is this God showing me that such a time as this.  And is the fact that, since LK and I sat down to openly talk with each other about what this would mean, life has seemed to speed forward in such rapid succession that to find the time to pray and search for the answer to this ministry a ploy from satan to keep us from doing this?  Or is it God's way of showing that maybe now is still not the time?  Or is it just life, and if I feel this mission on my heart that I need to give it to God and trust that some days it will work very very well and others I'll think to sign up for such a job was the craziest thing I've ever done (and boy doesn't that say a lot in so few words!).

It's been a long time since I've dissected every encounter and thought until I've nothing but the nucleus of the situation's atoms left to study.  Maybe this is a good thing, maybe not.