Taking It Back

The prayer jar in our church is filling up! Each time that God answers a prayer, members of our church take a small glass stone out of the small bowl and put it in the tall jar. It's a lovely visual reminder of God at work.                                        

Sometimes someone (myself included) will accidentally reverse the process and take a stone from the large jar and put it in the small bowl. Ooops!

Sometimes in life, we do the same thing. We give our situation to God and think we leave it in His able hands, but we tie an invisible tether to it. God answers a prayer, provides a victory, frees us from a worry. Then we tug on that tether and bring that sin back into our lives or that worry back into our hearts. 


This reminds me of a quote from Corrie ten Boom and a poem I read on a bookmark:


The quote: 
"When God buries your sins in the deepest sea, He posts a sign that says 'No fishing allowed.'" 


The bookmark: 
Broken Dreams
As children bring their broken toys 
with tears for us to mend,
I brought my broken dreams to God 
because He was my Friend.
But then instead of leaving Him
in peace to work alone,
I hung around and tried to help
With ways that that were my own.
At last I snatched them back and cried,
"How can You be so slow?"
"My child," He said,
"What could I do? You never did let go."



Whether it is sin given over to God or dream in need of repair, when we give it to God, we need to GIVE it to God and LEAVE it with Him, trusting Him because He is trustworthy. Forgive me the cliche, but it's just so true: Let go, and let God. 

ps - Thank you for your prayers! Still waiting for final test results, but AJ's back to his old self. And my dad's out of ICU. He still has a long road ahead so please continue to pray. Thank you so much.