About two months ago I had a pretty good heart to heart conversation with God. Now some people would call that prayer, but I set aside time during the day to pray, and am in pretty much constant conversation with God throughout the rest of day. Anyways, I had spoke with a coworker about prayer/personal conversations with God, and he let me in on a personal detail of his involving prayer. I won't go into details because it was a personal conversation, and I hold that conversation in deep respect. However it all based itself around being specific in what you pray and talk to God about.
What I mean is, we all want good health and we all want a safe day and we all want our children and/or our family to be well, etc. There's nothing wrong with praying for those things, obviously. What we spoke about was being specific in your prayers about specific challenges. I took that to heart. On the way home I asked God to remove the anxiety I had developed over the course of a few years involving one of my neighbors. I don't want to paint this neighbor in a bad light because he's actually an alright gentleman, but for some reason he caused me the greatest deal of anxiety I have ever felt in my life. To the point where I could not step outside if I knew he was outside as well. This anxiety had caused me a great deal of trouble in and around the house. Sometimes I wasn't able to go outside to do basic yard work, or play with my children. I pretty much kept myself inside. It even got to the point where I would only turn left out of my driveway to avoid driving in front of this man's house. Pretty crazy, I know. It's even humorous now, looking back on it.
Well anyways, after bearing my heart to God and asking him to remove this anxiety I'm moseyed on home ,but stopped by Publix first. I did a little shopping for the weekend, and proceeded to move through the checkout line. After bagging up my groceries I headed out and went to walk through the automatic doors of Publix. Then as the doors slid open to the parking lot, there bigger than life, was my neighbor, and there was absolutely no way for me to avoid him, short of me turning around and running. Which, let's face it would have been ridiculous.
At that instance, my knees went weak and I had no clue what to do. But as quick as the anxiety rose, the thought of my conversation with God entered my mind. We looked at each other dead in the eye and he said, "Hey neighbor, how are you?". At that moment I felt an overwhelming peace that I can only describe as the Holy Spirit. We struck up a small conversation, really about nothing, as even after 13 years of living next to him we have never really spoke much. We talked about yard work and me cleaning up the fence line between our properties. Then we both went on our ways and just like that my anxieties were gone.
After that freeing moment graciously given to me by the Lord, I have spent almost every waking hour of my weekends outside doing yard work, playing with my kids, and honestly just being a normal neighbor. About a week after this happened I was outside and another neighbor from across the street came out and struck up a conversation with me. I had no reservations with this man, but I also really never spoke to him either. We stood in the middle of the road and talked for a good hour about the history of the neighborhood and the absurdities of today, like insurance companies and roofs. I spoke to that man more at that moment then I had in the 13 years of living at my house.
So I know this post is a little unlike my previous post, but I just felt the need to share. The thought of bringing specific thoughts and concerns to God, while not exactly a foreign thought to me, was not something I practiced. I was raised in a Godly family and surrounded by Godly men and women my whole life. I am extremely thankful for my upbringings and what I have learned from my parents, grandparents, and my great-grandparents. I'm also thankful for my friends, especially the ones that I could have those deep candid conversations with.
Now I want to be clear, I do not believe in any type of prosperity gospel. I don't want to get super theological right now so I won't but, God isn't a genie, and you can't force your will to be his will. Many years ago I stopped praying to God for me to have a "good day". I pivoted from asking for a good day to, "God let me have the acceptance and ability to handle the day that you are going to give me." Just that simple change in my prayers has dramatically changed the way I handle and view any problems that pop up in my day-to-day life.
Well I guess I should wrap up. I have yard work to do and it's a beautiful day.
