Favor

There will be MUCH to blog about in the coming weeks, dear blog stalkers. I cannot wait to fill you all in on these developments.

But for now, I'm going to continue to be vague. I don't feel right laying it all bare quite yet.

Let the suspenseful drums roll! Ahh how sweet the sound! Like the promise of life after rain. A good promise, indeed.

Ok, so you know what? I've misunderstood something my whole life. This is big, my friends. I've severely misunderstood something. To the point where reassurance was rendered as reason to panic and start bawling.

It's a very common saying in my house to say, "Lord, have favor on us as we do blah blah blah..." we ask for God's "favor." It's normal. It's a normal prayer in my house. And thus a very common prayer in my heart.

Well, now. Favor. It sounds like a smile, doesn't it? You know the teacher's pet in that one class... whenever that kid would walk in the room, the teacher would smile.

The teacher favored that kid.

Then there's the baby of the family. For example, the Marvelous Melodi. She is four years old, and the youngest in my family. She's so small and cute, and the world knows she knows it. You just cannot handle it when the girl cries. It's like every pine tree in the Pine Barrens down the road becomes a weeping willow when the child is upset. She's the baby. We adore her somehow because of it. We favor her. She makes us smile. While we hate when she cries, somehow we still find her unbelievably cute when she has a golf ball sized tear stream down her adorable cheeks. We smile. Because we favor her.

Ok. So when I favor someone, they tend to make me happy. I tend to smile a lot when I'm happy. When we use certain words, there is a connotation. Favor. For me, the world "smile" is that association.

So you know what I've wanted to know the past few months? What a storm has to do with a smile. Because my life the past few months has seemed to be anything but heaven smiling over me. A smile makes me think rainbows and fairies and green grass. Not a rain cloud exploding with lightening and thunder that sounds like a man chasing me on horseback with a whip in his hands.

Now. Stay with me. Here's something new God's presented me with:

Favor isn't always what we might call "favorable." The conditions are not always favorable. Sometimes favor is the MOST uncomfortable thing possible. For example... my job that I lost a few weeks ago. That sucked. That was awful. I felt like the biggest fool to walk the planet. I felt horrible. But today, it makes sense. I can see the hand of God on that situation. Already.

Favor does not mean relaxing, and sipping ice cold lemonade with condensation slipping down the clear glass. It doesn't mean we have an excuse to do whatever we want and the promise that we'll "succeed" in our own plans and ideas. It doesn't mean we acquire a magic wand for whenever we want to do something.

Sometimes... favor is pain. And a LOT of it.

Favor is God's blessing, His provision, His guidance. When we have those things, we have His best. But when "our thoughts are not His thoughts," hmmm... we're asking for a lot of bending and breaking to mold ourselves into a workable clay for favor to securely rest on us, aren't we?

I want God's favor. I want His guidance. I want Him to keep rearranging my plans, and my heart until I meet Him face to face. I want Him to keep cracking me like my chiropractor did to realign my spine... I want God to realign my mind. It sounds awful when my doctor would crack my neck. But in the end, I can move it far better, and easier. Same with the realigning of my mind. That's what God's doing to me right now. Cracking me. Not with a whip. But with His hands. Hands that let favor seep through them into whatever they touch. Me.

And so my mind is being realigned. And I'm able to think more clearly. See more clearly. He's been guiding me. His favor has been the key of this crazy song that I've never heard before. It didn't always sound very good to me. But favor is not always comfortable. And praise God for that.

Psalm 40:1-4
1 I waited patiently for the LORD;
he turned to me and heard my cry.
2 He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.
3 He put a new song in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear the LORD
and put their trust in him.