I sit in my prayer alcove and pour out my heart to the God I
love. Some of the things on my heart seem mammoth; some seem intransigent,
never improving despite the desperation in my voice and heart; some just niggle
and some are probably not worth mentioning.
Then I look down at the globe, where I have marked black
spots for particular prayer and the comparison couldn’t be more stark. When God
has in his sight children orphaned from ebola, refugees freezing on the heights
in Syria, prisoners awaiting beheadings by fanatics in Iraq, broken-hearted
people bereaved and lonely, people in pain, people in distress ... my bag of
burdens are small potatoes. Infinitely small by comparison.
And yet Jesus reassures his followers that God knows the
number of hairs on our heads. He cares for every bird and living creature. He
invites us to ‘come to me, and I will give you rest’.
His perspective encompasses the grandiose and the infinitesimally
small. The state of the world and the state of Michele. And he cares for all.
In his awesome might and power he can be involved on the macro and the micro
levels, bringing hope and relief and comfort and peace to all.
I don’t want to inflate my worries but neither do I want to
diminish them. Jesus invites us to lay our burdens at his feet, and that
restores our perspective. As we release our grip on our anxieties – which can
seem irresponsible in some ways – we gain a glimpse of the divine perspective
and we are filled with peace as we trust that he has heard our cries and is
responding.
Not every prayer is answered exactly as we want it nor as
instantly as we would like, but we can trust that God is not ignoring them and
to him, none of them are small potatoes.
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