Coincidence or Providence?

 I mentioned yesterday that I was struggling with NOT wanting to get my hopes up and how that was contradictory to my faith. If I’m praying for something shouldn’t I naturally get my hopes up for it?  I’m a little bit jaded emotionally because I am tired of heartbreak and I don’t want to be hurt or go through that pain again.  So I’m emotionally insulating myself, but is that the right thing to do?  God instructs that if you have enough faith you can move a mountain.  I’ve never been able to move mountains so I guess I must be deficient in the faith department.  Or at times I feel like I am.  Then something peculiar or fantastic happened this morning depending on your point of view.  I mention all the time how God speaks to me. Well not only me, but He speaks to all of us.  I believe I’m called to help other people hear God’s voice.  Yet I haven’t been banging that drum recently because some of things I felt as if He told me have not come to pass. So it must not have been his voice.  You have to be careful to differentiate between your voice, God’s voice and the voice of the enemy.  Because the enemy is the Angel of Light so he can mimic or sound a lot like God.   So I’m a little gun shy right now.  Yet something happened in my pre-scheduled daily bible reading.  I say pre-scheduled because I’m reading through the Bible in a year in a chronological plan.  So what I’m reading is pre-ordained or pre-selected.  This is important to specify because one could pick and choose verses in the Bible out of context to fit any narrative.  You can actually get/manipulate the Bible into saying anything you want.  But God weighs the heart.  So as I’m questioning about how to protect myself and not get my hopes up, my devotional today was 2 Kings 4.  In that story the prophet Elisha was staying with an old childless couple.  Elisha told her that she would have a child which she miraculously did.  But then the child died and the woman was devastated.  She was angry at Elisha.  2 Kings 4 “Did I ask you for a son my lord?” She said.  “Didn’t I tell you, Don’t raise my hopes.”  Then Elisha with the help of God raised the child from the dead in a miraculous way.  

What struck me was that the woman was concerned about raising her hopes just like I was yesterday.  God looked past that and did the miracle anyway despite her doubts not getting her hopes up.  I was so encouraged in hearing this today.  God is actually concerned with all my concerns.  He is hearing my heart’s cry.  Does this mean my prayers will get answered?  I honestly have no idea if they’ll be answered.  But I do know this, that whatever happens will be for my ultimate good even though it might not seem like it at the time.  

I remember 20 years ago during my first Hellacious divorce.  I didn’t want that one either.  I prayed fervently for 3 years for reconciliation, I mean 2-3 hours a day.  I was determined to move a mountain.  The mountain didn’t move and I didn’t reconcile with my first wife.  I was devastated.  Yet God delivered me from that.  Not only that but those years of separation/divorce were probably the best years of my life because I was so devoted to God. To top that off, I got an extreme upgrade.   Why didn’t God answer my prayer?  Because he had something better for me that I just didn’t realize at the time.  And it was better.  The last ⅔ of my life has been much better than the first ⅓.  I’m fortunate that things seem to get better every year in my life despite the emotional devastation that has been wrought for the past year.  If everything goes to plan, my last ⅓ will be the best.  

So will God answer my prayer this time?  I don’t know.  But past evidence suggests that even if he doesn’t, He’ll have something even better for me.  He’s done it before. Basic logic dictates that He will do it again.  So yes, it’s time to get my hopes up again.  The hopes aren’t in the finality whether my prayers gets answered.  Rather my Hopes are high that God will have the ultimate best for me whatever the future may hold.  I simply have to trust and wait.  I don’t have much of a choice anyway.  God keeps telling/impressing on me that this next year 25-26 will be the best of my life.  I can’t see it right now.   I wonder, “Is that God’s voice or my own.”  I’m not sure and time will tell.  It’s just ironic because this past year was tied for last as the worst year of my life.  Wouldn’t it be just like God to make the following year the best?  I’m prayerful and hopeful that it will be so.  So coincidence, I think not.  My vote is for Providence.  My hopes are high once again, as they should be.