"Unanswered" Prayers

Father's Day on Cannery Row.

Yesterday I had the wonderful blessing of being able to head north after church and spend Father's Day with my parents. For weeks I looked forward to a good, long cup of coffee at a special coffee shop on Cannery Row—sitting, catching up, just being together. As we headed up the Salinas Valley the fog bank ahead looked ominous, but when we got to the coffee shop I had requested the weather was beautiful, the ocean glittered in the sun, and someone had even left us two outside tables, pushed together, with an umbrella above them and six chairs arranged around them. Thanks, Lord!

When I went into the coffee shop to order while we waited for my folks to arrive I noticed on the top of the counter facing the door a few books on stands . . . a couple of titles by John Steinbeck, and my dad's pictorial history of the Monterey/Cannery Row waterfront and sardine industry, From Fisherman's Wharf to Steinbeck's Cannery Row. When he got there I had fun telling my dad that he was ranked up there side by side with Steinbeck!

Not bad company to be next to . . .

Later last night, as we sat around visiting at my parent's home, Dad reminded me of a time in the very early 1960s when he had bumped in to Steinbeck on the street up in San Francisco. All of a sudden, as he shared it, I thought of how, often, if we were told our future, we'd never believe it because it would be so out of our current frame of reference that we couldn't receive it. When my dad bumped in to John Steinbeck, at the time Steinbeck was a well known author . . . but my dad was not writing, I wasn't in the picture, and grand kids certainly weren't! It would have been, on that early 1960s day, mind-bending to be told that he would one day be a father of a son, a grandfather of two beautiful girls, an author of a book that would be shelved next to Steinbeck's, and spending a Father's day almost 50 years later with his wife, son, daughter-in-law and two granddaughters at a waterfront coffee shop at an elegant resort hotel in an area that, at that time, was marked old abandoned canneries with little tourist appeal.

As I reflected on that, I found myself thinking of how often we probably ask God for an answer to something and, while He knows it, He either can't give it to us, or we can't recognize it as from Him when He does (thinking, instead, we are just having weird thoughts or daydreams), because the answer is completely out of our frame of current reference because it involves situations and circumstances that we have yet to even know will happen. Sometimes, I believe, we must wait to get an answer from God because a person, or situation, or event involved in the answer is not even in place or in the picture yet, and there is no way for us to comprehend an answer that involves something or someone we are not even aware of yet.

As I look back at seasons of my life I realize how many places there are in it that if you had told me where I'd be five or ten or twenty years later I would have either laughed, called you crazy, or simply not been able to wrap myself around it (i.e. the college freshmen mocking a God he claims he doesn't believe in becoming a pastor, etc.). Certainly, if I had a thought about a future like that I would have dismissed it! And yet, when we pray and ask God a question about the future, how many times is that the same situation? We wouldn't recognize the answer if He gave it to us because it is so out of the current context of our life or situation. And so, in that period of waiting, we move ahead on faith—not believing God hasn't heard or doesn't care, but just trusting the love He showed us on the cross and knowing that, if we aren't seeming to get an answer from Him, we can trust His love and trust His character and goodness, and trust that there is a good reason for it—and that He has not left us, ceased to care for us, or stopped watching over us.

Being Sure . . .

I know that there are times when we simply have to make choices and we just can't hear God's voice on which direction to go. In those times I trust in Psalm 37:23 which says: The steps of a man are established by the LORD, when he delights in his way. That was English Standard Version. The New King James Version translates it: The steps of a [good] man are ordered by the LORD, And He delights in his way.

A lady in our church once pointed that out to me when I was struggling to make a decision and not hearing God's voice. Since then I have stood on it—I make my best decision and trust that as I have sought Him, and sought to honor Him with my life, and earnestly desired His will in my life and not my own, He promises to establish my steps. Trusting that, I just make my best decision.

With that said, I have been reminded in these last few days of the importance of seeking God's heart for decisions and hearing His voice when we are able to. It is so critical when the enemy casts doubt to be able to go back to the decision that took us where we are and say, "No! I know I am where God wants me, and I know that He is not going to leave me alone in it."

Last week I did a graveside service for a man who was part of a wonderful, long-established family in our area. As the hour approached, knowing that there would be a crowd there which would include many, many of our area's long-time natives and families, I began to feel nervous and start to doubt my notes and let all sorts of insecurities creep in. Last night I experienced the same thing when I spoke at a revival service at a church in Paso Robles and as the time to speak approached I saw five other area pastors in the crowd. Suddenly I was nervous, questioning my notes, etc.

In both cases I returned to the same place. I was able to say, "No. I will not be afraid. I sought God's heart about whether I should do this. I have sought His heart in preparing it. He is not a God that abandons His children, but an Immanuel God who is with me, colaboring with me, beside me, and in me." There was such tremendous peace in knowing I had sought His heart and will from the moment I was asked to do them all the way through the process. It gave me a place of assurance to go back to and take my anxieties captive to. My God does not sit back, arms crossed, judging me—when I seek His heart and seek His will He colabors with me as my biggest fan and friend and helper. He is, truly, a great God, and both of those services were anointed by His Holy Spirit.

Thank You . . .

Thanks to all of you praying for us and our youth "camp." God really answered all the prayers. I am posting here two pictures from the fire so you can see what you were praying against. One is a view (slightly zoomed) from our driveway. The tiny dot in the smoke just above the trees is a very large air tanker! The second picture is from the lower part of our property looking over our property to the plume behind it (our home is just behind the hill in the center). The wind changed, the fire turned, and our community was saved. Thank you! Thank You God! (For you who are signed up to get this on email, I am sorry for posting two pictures. I hope it didn't take too long to download, I tried to make them small. I just felt you would value seeing what we were seeing since you were with us here in prayer.)

The youth arrived back here about 9 am (including the one that wasn't answering her phone or door) and we had a great meal of pancakes, etc. We then settled in to the classes. We taught the kids about the battle around them, and for them; about how you can't build a solid house that is bigger than the foundation you build it on is able to support; about spiritual warfare; about the example Jesus set for taking time away from ministry to be alone with the Father; about understanding how the Bible is laid out and how to read verse references; about how God does not despise their youth and how they can be revolutionaries to dream big and change a generation and a nation---at the age they are at now; and so much more.

Three times during the camp we sent the youth out around our yard and home for quiet time. For many of them it was the first time they had ever taken it---just them and God alone together. We wouldn't let them take watches or anything. The first time we kept them out a little over 20 minutes (we added 5 minutes each time) and most came in amazed because they said it was too short. We had first read them the parable of the seeds and soil, and then we had taken a walk where we showed them places that birds had snatched seed we had planted and scattered; soil where we had planted grain in the last rain and it had sprouted but then withered and died, fields where the thorns and weeds were choking out the good grasses, and our garden bed where we water it, fertilize it, and tend it. Their first quiet time we asked them to ask God what kind of soil their own heart was, and then to just listen to what He might tell them.

The second quiet time we had them read about Peter walking on the water and then asked them a bunch of questions about it---what is the most beautiful verse in it to you? Is there a promise in there for you? Is God asking something of you in it? What is your response? Plus, a lot more. The third quiet time we just let them go out unscripted. It was amazing how God spoke to those youth, and I believe that many of them were amazed that He did as well.

We watched some videos on a 6' screen out on the lawn at night, including an incredible presentation from the Passion tour about how huge and amazing and indescribable our God is and how the heavens reveal that. It was really, really awesome to do that under the night sky (a sky clear of smoke, by the way!). We ended up, totally unscripted, watching a second Passion presentation the next morning about God and how amazing He is and how that is revealed in the size of the stars and in the intricate center of our molecules. Those videos really grabbed the youth and we have decided to show them on the big screen at church in the fall and see how many people we can bring to see it. The youth are really fired up about that.

I could write all day about what happened, but I wanted to just share a slice of it with you. Probably one of the best parts was when a former youth grouper who we had as a counselor picked up his guitar in the morning and started playing it. A girl in the youth group who is on our church's worship team sat down and started singing, and we brought our keyboard down for her. We debated calling the kids in, but then decided to let them play or whatever while we were cleaning up breakfast and just see what God did. Soon, totally on their own, every person at the camp was in the living room singing worship songs! Man, God's Spirit was all over it! Everyone, from Bethany and Abigail, to the youth, to the staff, was touched and changed by God. Thanks, again, for your prayers.