Writers In The Storm

“Mommy, can I have some Skittles, pleeeease?” my toddler begged in the grocery store line as she looked up at me with pleading eyes. Through the years, the requests involved sleepovers, kittens, cell phones, ponies, and trips, but the requests were almost always punctuated with a “please.”

I do the same thing in my relationship with God. And in my child-like faith, I know He delights in hearing my requests. He invites me to go to Him for everything. Sometimes my requests sound like the widow with the judge–persistent badgering. Other times, my prayers resemble Naaman’s arrogant demands to be healed his way and in his timing. I’ve also experienced the Gethsemane painful, quiet acceptance of “not my will, but Yours be done.”

I’ve learned that the request isn’t nearly as important as the time I spend yielding my desires, plans, and needs to a faithful God who cares about every intimate detail of my life. And in sharing my vulnerabilities with Him, I am changed. God graciously meets me with each supplication and turns my face toward Him as I whisper my “please.”

Christian metaphors make lousy recruitment posters. All the grim imagery of bleating sheep, slave and master, or hunched beasts of burden tend to make one crave a savvy marketing department. The connotations don’t hang well in a modern closet.

We want style, fashion, flash. We want Barbie. Not Gumby.

But, I tell you, Gumby is the man! That boy knows how to supplicate. God made a Gumby out of me.

My yoke is easy and my burden is light. Matthew 11:30

The notion used to make me cringe. It sounded like the mantra of the latest quack cultists. It begged humiliation. It took away my control.

However, my control was like that of the marionette’s: pure illusion. In this world, it doesn’t exist. Without His holy light, that verse is pure nonsense. God allowed me to see the truth. He is in control.

And like Gumby, I can just be me. Unlike all the feminist literature I read during my formative years, this was an uniquely liberating concept. God doesn’t make me into a drone or a clone, nor do I become one with the Borg collective. He doesn’t even try to push my Gumby head bump to the other side. He uses me as I am, flawed and fearful, bending and stretching me as I rely on him.

I identify with the Apostle Peter. Peter, when he was known as Simon, before he submitted to the gentle yoke of Jesus. The loud, foot-in-the-mouth, shoot-first-don’t-bother-with-questions Peter. The one before Jesus declared him, Peter, the rock. He and I had much in common.

I look in the mirror and see only Gumby. Yet my heart knows my journey with God. He led me away from my unholy road and placed me on His path of righteousness. He personally lights my footsteps. I occasionally stop and sniff at the air. Flowers of evil still allure. I can’t reach that other road anymore. I may be able to find it, if I tried, but it could never bring me joy. Still Gumby, yet somehow, different.

God looks into my soul and sees the real me. The one I am to be. The one at the end of my particular yellow brick road, when I am finally and forever home.

God won’t take me by force. He doesn’t need me. He allows me. To join Him in His kingdom, to live forever in glory, to reign with Him. Do I have a clue what that really means? No. What I do know is that His love gives me strength; His presence, peace; and His faithful promise, hope.

To Jesus Christ, only, I freely submit, yield, and supplicate.

As Simon became Peter, Gumby, too, rocks.

“Doesn’t hearing your children call out, ‘Mom’ just make your heart swell?” said the grandmotherly buggy-pusher at Krogers.

I smiled politely.

A few moments later, I heard my daughter saying, “Moo-ooom.” Her voice climbed the scales to the whine pitch. The shrill squeal clawed at my nerves like squeaky rubber shoes on a gym floor.

No. My heart’s shrinking not swelling!

Demanding, whining requests seldom receive favorable responses from mommies, daddies or God. How do I keep my earnest entreaties to God from becoming whining demands?

I would love to hear your thoughts, comments and suggestions.

To Supplicate means to ask earnestly with humility. To beseech. To entreaty.

Join us for this week’s discussion on supplication.