Last Monday, I felt the need to visit my part of the Church's prayer ministry during what they call "Soaking Prayer", which takes place every Monday evening. "Soaking Prayer" is simple: a team of two people pray with you in a room with no time limits. Most often it's used for physical healing, but I decided to go for physical healing (I've had surgery to remove my colon in 2001, and would love a new one) and more so, for confirmation that God has been speaking to me about Project: Morning Rain and the modern take on the questions presented in the book of Job.
While being prayed over, one of the things the prayer team spoke over me was that I needed to be bolder in asking for what God's put on my heart, that God won't disappoint. So they led me to ask God aloud for my physical restoration, and waited. Nothing happened, but I felt a great release as I was able to honestly, in the presence of others, ask Him for it. I also received the freedom to accept that sometimes He says "no", even when He moves us to ask. Though I can't reconcile why He would tell me to ask and then say, "No", I'm beginning to get it.
This week was a test further in that direction. As my readers no doubt know well by now, I am without a camera, and am asking God to provide a new one for me in this work by March. I was talking with Him about it, how it is so frustrating that He both freed me from feeling obligated to "side jobs" in order to ensure we can make it and pushed me towards doing the films He has for me, and moved me to donate my camera to my part of the Church.
Then He said, in that small Voice of His, "You could ask that I would give you the Canon 7D for Christmas." My initial reaction, and what I struggled against throughout the week, was the instinct to recoil and think, "He's not going to give it to me, so why bother?" On the other hand, I didn't want to get my hopes up, because He just said I could ask. He didn't say He would say yes.
But in that moment, I made a decision to start asking, that He would provide me with a Canon 7D for Christmas, so that I could more fully provide content for Project: Morning Rain.
Constantly, whenever the thought would come up, I would stop and pray, walking the line of having faith, and not putting my trust in a camera. I kept reminding myself, it wasn't about the camera, it was about me asking my Heavenly Father to give me to the tools I needed to do what He put on my heart to do. I reminded God constantly that He was the One who inspired me to ask for this for Christmas.
On Tuesday, I went to Best Buy to utilize the first $100 that had been donated to buy a portable hard drive for Project: Morning Rain. When I have the completed kit, I will go on a road trip to capture footage for films, interviews, and the like. And I'd need a portable hard drive that would work for that.
I found the unit that would work for me (amazing how small these things are, now), and on my way out, felt the desire to see what cameras were at Best Buy. Surely, not the 7D, I thought. With wife and child in tow, I scanned across the available items, and there, at the very end of the line-up, was the Canon 7D, complete with a lens package for under $2,000. There it was, the thing I was asking for, right in front of me.
If it hadn't been for my wife being such a debt hating Godsend, it would have been so very hard to honor my commitment to God: no more debt for gear. I was not going to make it happen for myself.
Yet there it was, with a finance option of no interest for 18 months. Nevermind that our income isn't enough as it is, that there would be no way to pay that off in time, that, because God moved me to give up side jobs, there's no way any kind of extra money is coming in save through God's providence and His people.
It was there. I tested it, played with it; then walked away. I can tell you this intensified my prayers; oh that someone would see that camera and think of me! I fought desperately, all the more, to focus on asking for what was on my heart, not telling God how it should go down. He told me to pray for it for Christmas, not to tell Him how to make it happen.
The rest of the week, whenever the thought came up, I would pray it, and, as quick as it came, it would leave. I could sense in the back of my mind God saying, "It's not about the camera", and I began to sense what it was He was really doing, but I didn't want to set aside my faith that He might still do this thing -- that was part of the lesson.
I continued, and found myself praying more, and more. And for many things, not just for the 7D. Often it would start with the 7D due to a thought, but then my prayers would quickly wander to other people, families, friends with marriages in tough places, my part of the Church, and many other things.
Strangely, while the thing that drove me to pray was this little camera, I wouldn't stay there long. Again, I began to realize what it was God was really doing, but I felt Him say, "Don't stop praying for that 7D."
The short of it? Christmas came and went, and there is still no camera. (Yet.) But I don't feel disappointment. I know that God knows I need the right tools to get the job done, and I honestly believe this whole thing, months ago, started because He put it in my heart that the current tools I had were too big, too bulky, for what He had for me next.
But at the end of the day, it's not about the tools. Rather, it's bringing everything, whether small or big, before the Father, constantly. I know that my Father will not give me a snake when I have asked for a loaf of bread. I know that my Savior and Lord has put these dreams in my heart, to glorify him with the visions of stories and adventures in my head. And somehow, this experience, this week, strengthened, rather than weakened, that knowledge.
I told Rachel earlier in the week about this, and she said she was concerned that if God didn't deliver, I'd get depressed. I don't think I am. It's difficult. It's really hard right now not to think about how to make it happen, how to justify picking up just a little bit of side work, or to figure out how to make 18 months worth of payments before the interest kicks in, or to...or to...or to...
But I remember the goodness of my God, the people He's placed in my life, and the wealth of the Spirit that I've so often taken for granted (or worse, mistrusted), and it passes. I may have to remind myself multiple times, but it passes. He doesn't want me to scheme and plan, because He wants to have the pleasure of blessing me. It's His joy more than mine.
And whether it's from Best Buy, or from donations, from checks or cash, from men or from angels...I know that He's promised me a camera for this new season. I know it's coming soon. And furthermore...I know it's not about the camera at all.
So I wait with expectation, and I keep praying. I pray every time any thought about anything comes to me, now, because I am so excited to come before my Father with my requests, and leave with more insights than requests I had entered with.
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