Prayer
No Mayonnaise. No Pickles. Be Specific
I wanted to see the Mountain Laurels in bloom so we decided to go to church in Spruce Pine. As I entered the restroom a nice lady greeted me. We began to chat. She was originally from Florida too. Actually, everyone I met that day had lived in Florida at some point in their life. Here’s the story the nice lady shared with me in the restroom. She said I could share it with you, so here goes.
She explained they had lived in Melbourne, Florida for many years. Her husband had been an engineer at NASA. Their daughter understood the power of prayer and finding the right man was high on her agenda, so she prayed. But her prayer was incredibly specific. So specific it worried her mother. The girl prayed, “God this is what I want in a husband. I want him to be a committed Christian. (Amen) I want him to be musically inclined and love music. And…I want him to hate mayonnaise and pickles. In spite of her mother’s concern and mild protests, this is how the high school senior prayed.
During her senior year, God began to deal with her dad to quit his job and move to North Carolina. At the end of the school year, the family moved to North Carolina, 400 hundred miles away. They moved to Spruce Pine. A small town with only a few hundred people. There that young woman met and married a young man that loves God, and music and hates…mayonnaise and pickles. Now he is the worship leader in that church.
Don’t you just love it when God’s plan comes together in such a way you just know it has to be God. There have been times in my life I prayed so specific that I knew only God could have made it come to pass. Those times are memorials that keep me believing and standing in faith when I want to give up. Remembering those significant times stimulates my might to fight!
So pray, and yes pray specific. Don’t be hesitant to tell God what you need and want. Sometimes in the process God will fine tune the prayer and narrow it’s focus with clarity and understanding. That’s how a conversation works. As God fine tunes your heart and prayers, your relationship with Him will grow. Your faith will grow. Your answers to prayer will increase. I really like that part of the process. But I also find that the richness of my relationship with Him is as precious as receiving my answer to prayer.
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