Potty Prayers

If you shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it. — John 14:14

This may be stretching this scripture a little. I’ve heard many preachers say if you ask for fame or fortune, God will give it to you. Well, I’m definitely here to tell you that is *not* what this scripture means, but God is in the details for sure.

I was witnessing to a friend online several months ago. She was asking me lots of questions about who Jesus is and what exactly God wants from us. One day she told me that she’d misplaced her glasses and she was stressing having to go pay for some new ones. A single mom needs to watch all her expenses you know. I told her to pray about it and I would pray about it, and God would help her find her glasses.

I know she thought I was nuts but that’s ok. A few hours later, she found her glasses — in a place where she’d looked a gazillion times before. She asked, “why does God care about where my glasses are?” Because He cares about what’s most important to me. He cares about what’s most important to you. God cares about the details. He wants to be a part of our life — every day, every hour, every minute, every second. Was my friend finding her glasses some great miracle like parting the Red Sea? Not to you and me. But to my friend it was a great miracle and yet another detail to thank God for.

On a funny side note, my friend lost the tv remote about a week later. She’d frantically searched for it all over the place. She went to the potty, prayed that God would help her find the remote, and when she came out — she found it Take *all* your worries and cares to God. He wants to be in the details of your life!

Prayer: Lord, I pray that every person who reads this realizes how much You want to be in the details of their lives. Help me to remember to take every thing that comes to my mind — even as simple as losing the remote — to take every thing to You. I’m so thankful You are not some big, mean guy who sits up in heaven looking down at me, but that You wanted to have a relationship with me so much that You sent Your son to have a human body like me, to die a cruel death, to conquer death for me because You knew I wouldn’t be able to. Lord, thank You for wanting to be in the details of my life — the little stuff no one else really cares about.

Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you. That is why I give you this command today. — Deuteronomy 15:15 (NIV)

God had finally rescued the Israelites from decades of slavery under the Egyptians. God had performed miracle after miracle with the plagues and the parting of the Red Sea. Can you believe the Israelites had to be reminded to remember where they came from? When they grew tired of the manna God provided every day, they complained that they had better food in Egypt. With their selective memory, they forgot about all the pain they had in slavery.

I just got back last night from my family reunion. I was born in Princeton, West Virginia and my parents and I moved to North Carolina when I was eleven (roughly 23 years ago). I used to go back and visit my family (sister, brother, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends) but when I got married and had my daughter, I got lazy. It was just a lot easier to catch people when they came here to visit my parents.

Over the years though, I’d forgotten many things. I had forgotten how depressed the area is — the old, small houses that are falling down; the lack of places to work for something other than minimum wage. The town has grown tremendously from what it was when I lived there, but I never would have had the opportunities I had here in North Carolina.

I’m a big fan of remembering where you came from. It’s very easy to get caught up in the day-to-day troubles and worries to forget the way things used to be, the things you used to worry about and the things you used to do. I used to worry about who I was going to marry. I used to worry about the little baby crying wondering what it was she was trying to tell me. I don’t worry about those things anymore.

I miss the mountains and will always be a mountain girl, but I’m thankful God brought me to where I am now.

Prayer: God thank You so very much for Your love that is so great that it cannot leave us where we are — thank You for the love that changes us and grows us into the people You want us to be. Change is often difficult for all of us when we get set in our ways. Please help us to be filled with Your peace during the changes we need to go through.