The 21 Day iPod Shuffle Challenge
If you come to the TinyChat meetings on The Endtime Tribune, you know that my dad talks a lot about the 21-day "prayer fast," where you pray about one thing and one thing only for 21 days. Well, I'm taking that challenge myself. But to add to that, I have a hard time having faith that God will even answer my prayers--ya know, cuz God does whatever He wants to. So I have to work on my faith the same time I'm praying for 21 days, so that I have the determination to keep that covenant. The way I'm going to do it is the 21-day iPod Shuffle Challenge--something I came up with myself.
A lot of the time, I'm praying for an answer and I ask God to give me that answer through a song. I just grab my mp3 player and put it on shuffle, and whatever song that comes up--be it a love song or a praise song--is supposed to answer my question somehow. Does it work? Well, sometimes. A few times I think God's sense of humor has kicked in and He gives me a song that has nothing to do with what I'm asking about. Well, for the next 21 days, once a day I'll put my mp3 player on Shuffle and think of a Christian lesson that goes with that song!
Today's Challenge: Therapy by Relient K
When this song started playing on my mp3 player, it was like a revelation. First I thought, "Really, Lord? Another Relient K song?" Then my next thought was, "Thanks for the reminder." This song is about a guy getting over a breakup--he's crying, he misses her, he's having a hard time moving on without her. But he takes a drive out in the country so he can have a one-to-one talk with God. He calls that his "therapy."
Life is really frustrating. Why? Well, it's LIFE, that's why. We get harrassed with a billion things that distract us. It gets to the point where we can't even think straight because there's so much drama going on! (Have I been there? Why yes I have, thank you.) Sometimes we vent to our friends, our family, or maybe even a random stranger. But there's other times when nobody's around. Either they can't understand or they just plain get sick of having to listen to you all the time. Or maybe you get to the point where you only wanna talk to that one person you just can't talk to at the moment. Those are the times we need to clear away all the distractions--lock yourself up in a closet with heavy metal music blaring at 31, or walk to the middle of a forest, or drive somewhere just to drive. We need to get alone with God. And once all the distractions are gone, you can have a good talk with Him.
Something I'm sure you've all heard me say on my show is, "When nobody else is there, God will ALWAYS be there for you." In fact, I'm pretty sure I say it at least once a show. I say that not only for your benefit, but for mine as well. As a teenager, I have lots of drama going on around me. Oy vey, I can't even BEGIN to tell you. The people who know me either aren't there for me when I need it, or they're just plain sick of me complaining! It's really lonesome because I feel like no one is on my side. I'll lock myself in my room and cry, mumbling all my frustrations out loud because I wish someone could hear. I need someone to wrap their arms around me and let me cry on their shoulder, and tell me it's all right. I feel alone.
I forget sometimes, though, that there IS someone who hears. There IS someone who wraps His arms around me and tells me it's OK. Sure, it's not physical, but He's still THERE. I may be stubborn and want whatever I want, but no matter what, He's not going to leave. He's the person who's going to take out fresh sheets of paper and a nice expensive pen to take down notes about how I feel--because yes, God DOES listen to your feelings, even if you don't think He does! And unlike those fancy-shmancy therapists in pressed suits who take those notes and make an "educated guess" as to what your major malfunction is, God knows EXACTLY what your problem is. He can administer the best cures because He's inside your mind! He made your mind for Pete's sake!
And you know what? In those moments where I remember God's there, I feel a lot better after venting all my frustrations out on Him. Sure, I'm saying the same things over and over again, but He doesn't mind hearing it. For the past 2 days I've been praying as hard as I can about just one thing, and I can't think of any fancy words to change up what I'm saying. I'm repeating myself over and over. I hate doing that because I'm a writer, and in a piece of writing that's redundant, but to God, it's not redundant at all. He knows we need it.
Today I feel like I let God down because I had to do the prayer during TinyChurch. Who knows, maybe I did. For like half an hour, I locked myself upstairs and cried because I felt like I couldn't do ANYTHING right!! But as I'm writing this, I remembered: well, I'm praying because people need me to. If I need to add a few extra days to my prayer fast because I have to pray during TinyChurch, then I will! I just have to keep pressing on. I can't let something like that bog me down. I have to keep going, I have to keep trying. God knows my heart. He knows what my intentions are, and most of all, He knows I'm a teenager and I can't do every little thing just exactly perfect! So after I vented in a bunch of random gibberish, actually, I set my jaw and I decided I'm going to keep praying about this thing anyway.
Let me tell you a little something. Ever since I was about 13, when I really need to talk to God, I get this picture in my head. It's me, as a little girl in a black dress. There's two rooms with a big brick wall in between--one room has me in it, the other room has Jesus in it, sitting on a chair. When I need to talk to him, I go outside my room and knock on the door of His room. He lets me in, of course, and I just sit down on the floor next to him and tell him all my troubles and ask him to forgive me. He hugs me and lets me cry, and then when I'm finished, I walk out of that room with a white dress on. Silly, isn't it? But we all have our own ways of praying, I'm sure. It helps me to picture Jesus better.
Nope, I'm not perfect. Not even by a long shot. I'm not as smart or as helpful as most of the people on The Endtime Tribune, but I do my little part. God gave me a job to do, and I'm going to do that. I'm going to pray about what I've set out to pray for--I'm going to talk to Him about it, cast it all on Him, ask Him to make things better and help it to work out. I'm sure the devil doesn't like that. But you know what, ole devil? This is me sticking my tongue out at you. :P Nyah nyah nyah! God's my therapist and you can't knock me down.
~Sally Kurtie
No comments:
Post a Comment