Sometimes I have big questions about the way God works; what He will and won’t do, and what I can pray for that would be something He could correctly give. I have realized over the years as I have prayed for things that haven’t happened or didn’t work out, that I can’t pray for situations I want, people to choose things I want, health for myself and others that I want. Even if they are really good things, that I think God would totally want too, I can’t ask for things that would take away other’s agency and freedom to choose. I can’t ask for things that prevent The Fall. Christ is not the preventer. Sometimes I want Him to step into that roll and prevent all the things that naturally occur because of living a life.
So, what is He then? What
can God do? And what should I be
praying for?
Recently, very recently, Don’s project in Provo burnt
down. This project has been a nightmare
right from the start. We worked for five
years to get it approved. Other real
estate projects on State Street in Provo started after us, got approved, built
and sold, and we were still years away from getting approvals! It was so confusing to say the least. It was so Hard! Nothing about it was easy. We were so stressed at the final city council
meeting; after doing everything the city asked for over and over again,
spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, incredible amounts of time, and still didn’t
even know if it would pass. When it did,
we were amazed and ecstatic. But it was
right when interest rates were going up and we realized we couldn’t sell the
project if we wanted to get the money out of it to have made it worth it. We got some additional investors and hired a fantastic
company, Home Sweet Home, to build the units and got started.
I have prayed so much for this project. It is very important to us. I have prayed for it to be successful, to
work out, that nothing will go wrong, if there is anything that isn’t right or
going well that we will know it. Etc.
Then Friday night, at 2am three of the first four buildings were engulfed in flames.
Devastating. Heartbreaking. I saw the video from the fire dept and felt shocked and hurt. This is our pain. I am so appreciative of the thirty firefighters who were doing their job so well. I am so thankful for that, but when I saw the video, I felt so hurt.
I had questions for God all day yesterday. I cried. I talked to my friend/sister/therapist, Shiree. (You know her if you’ve read my blogs.) Most, best, wisest friend ever! And I prayed, a lot. I asked God, what should I have been praying for? Why did this happen? What good does it even do to pray? You know that kind of stuff, when the pain is so real and all fresh.
We hear a lot now about hope and faith, as Elder Anderson
put it in his last conference address, that it isn’t, “I hope it won’t rain, or I
hope our team wins.” Don always says, “Hope isn’t that you’re going to
get a pony for Christmas.” But that true faith is centered on our Lord,
Jesus Christ and our hope is of eternal life through our Savior’s grace and
merits.
We hear that all the time now, but when I was growing up, I hadn’t heard much about faith and hope being
centered in Jesus Christ. What I thought and believed was that we prayed
and worked really hard to do the right things and then such and such would
happen. I think I heard and misunderstood, that I would do “this” and
“that’ would happen. I believed and knew with all my heart that I would
do ABCDEFG, and HIJKLMNOP was going to happen. I just had so much faith and hope that it
gave me lots of energy to do all the things I heard I should be doing.
Nowadays, as I’ve picked apart what faith and hope is, I’ve
come to think of it as Faith is like the vehicle, but Hope is the fuel.
Hope is what gives us energy and drive and motivation, and it is so great when
we have it. And life is so hard when we don’t. There is just so much energy
when you think you can work hard and then control the outcome. Haha. Hope is great fuel. But it has to be correct and right. I didn't always understand that. Hope that a situation will happen, people will do or choose a certain thing, or that we will stay healthy and always be protected is not based on truth or God’s
plan.
I have been thinking about correct hope for a few years now. Hope is everything! And you don’t get that when you have it, you only truly get it when you don’t.
What can we correctly hope for? What does hope in the atonement of Jesus Christ really mean for my daily life? For me, it’s just understanding that hope is very individual. It’s personal about yourself. It’s not Gods plan to control other people's agency and choices. And situations aren’t controllable either, that’s just life. When I think of it now, what I think Hope is and how it's related to the atonement of Jesus Christ is that I have hope that I can receive revelation, daily. I hope that he can guide my life; that he speaks, and I can hear. My hope is that as I turn to Christ, I can receive comfort and peace; knowledge about things that will help me or give me more understanding. I absolutely have hope and faith that he can change me. I have hope that he can clean me and that I can become a person that can live with God again. This feels like hope centered on Jesus Christ to me.
I think there would be less faith and hope crisis if we really understood this principle. God isn't going to make a perfect life happen, he never promised that. It is so hard to understand that he is not with us to prevent opposition. As a matter of fact, he says, there must needs be opposition in all things if we are to learn. And He is here to help us with that. There is
so much fuel in correct hope. It means that I live a life with Christ,
asking for what I need: to be healed, to be clean, to know what’s true and not
true so that I can always have his spirit to be with me.
And when your project burns down, like yesterday, I found myself going back to the drawing board. Was I praying for the wrong things? This was not the answer to my prayers.
I asked
Him. “What do you say about this, what
do you want me to know?” What I heard
was, “Melonie you’re going to be okay.”
I knew it was true. Through all
the hard things in life, that is my one constant, I am okay. He changes me, teaches me, gives me light,
knowledge, comfort and strength so it all works for my good in the end. The scripture, “All things will be turned to
good for those who love and serve God” came into my mind. Also, “…man
cannot comprehend all the things that the Lord doth comprehend.” In my experience I would agree with that.
I still want to pray for our project to turn out well, that
it will be successful. And I feel God is
okay with that, but I have to know that my hope and faith is in Jesus Christ
that when, things don’t fall into place, or don’t go well, that he is
absolutely there and can validate and understand all my pain, that he will
strengthen, comfort and bring peace. Give me knowledge that helps. And that he speaks, I can hear and trust
that we will be okay. It fills me up when I focus on these things, instead of depleting me with the heartache.
A side note: Our builder
texted me this morning and said He felt like a miracle on Friday happened when
they staked the parking lot and decided to move all of their equipment and additional
lumbar to the other side of the property.
All their equipment and so much lumbar had been right next to the buildings
and would have also burned. It was so nice
to feel his perspective of seeing a miracle.
He said, “Father in Heaven protected everything around it and that everything
that could have been salvaged was salvaged at the project.” “Staking the parking lot on Friday afternoon
turned out to be a miracle.”
People have choice and God’s not going to take that away, but he
can still provide a miracle.
