I was standing there praying at church yesterday. I was thinking about my life and all the changes I know I need to make. All the areas where I am weak and need to grow. And I found myself asking God, "God, why can't you just fix me all at once? Becoming the person you want me to be takes so much work and time. I just want it done."
Then I thought about my weight loss journey. I've been at it for two months now and am down 18 pounds. Which is awesome! Except that I have a lot more to go. I want to wave my magic wand and make the weight just disappear. It is hard work losing weight. It's an all day, every day, for a really long time thing. And once I lose all the weight, it's a life time of making better choices so I don't gain it all back. So basically, it's a forever sort of thing. And I find myself overwhelmed and asking God, "God, why can't you just fix me all at once? Becoming the person, the size, you want me to be takes so much work and time. I just want it done."
I made a decision a few months back that I wanted to grow in the area of Spiritual Gifts. I know that not every church agrees that the Spiritual Gifts are still alive and active, but I do. And I decided that I wanted the Gift of Healing. So I decided I was going to start praying with people that they would be healed.
Sometimes I'm sure that it's an instant thing--you ask God for a gift and you suddenly have it. But I think mostly that God gives us the gift and it's our job to develop it and grow it over time. Daily decisions that we will step out in faith and do it. Over and over. Even if it doesn't seem like anything is happening at first.
So I decided I was going to just started praying with people to be healed. Even if nothing happens, I will just keep praying. And eventually I will start to see people being healed. Because I know God put the desire in my heart to pray with people, and He tells us that all we need do is ask and it will be given. My job is to just keep praying and asking and God will do the rest.
And obviously I would love it if I was one of those people who went from "no gifting" to "performing miracles," but I think it is more of a "diet" thing. It's an all day, every day, for the rest of my life decision that I will grow the gift by using it, trusting that God will work through me. That over time I might pray for someone and see God work a true miracle right before my eyes. And that would be amazing. Until then, I will just keep praying and trusting that God is using me.
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