I used to live by this mantra – “it never hurts to ask.” I chanted it to myself as I walked the streets of a historic Virginia town at eighteen, knocking on doors with my little writing notebook, meeting new people, and having surprising conversations. I used it to justify the random side trails I took on my “senior” trip with my aunt to drop my sister off in Kentucky for a horse gig the summer before I left home. It took on new meaning when I participated in street evangelism at Bible College during my first year of school – few people on the team I went out with knew how to start a conversation beyond the script they’d been taught since Kindergarten.
And then when I fell in love for the first time, God told me to ask Him for a person. Which was a little odd, and something I was not at all ready to do, especially since the asking entailed a submission to His will – for a yes OR a no. It took me two years to ask. And God said no. Only, He told me later it was because I wasn’t the only person the boy had shut out. God knew what he would do. He knew how to keep my heart open and continue drawing ME into life, no matter what came about with a situation that could have turned me cold and hard.
Lately, God has been asking me to ask Him for weddings – I don’t have any booked from here, and I know He is waiting for me. I have the sense that He’s planning to run in and say YES, YES, YES – it’s not a “yes or no” thing this time.
Hebrews 11 says that anyone who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them who diligently seek Him. It is really, really, really hard for me to believe that second part. It is more spiritual to love a God without wanting to be blessed. It’s safer to believe that He is and not engage my desire when it comes to His provision for my life. But He MADE me with all this desire, and He says that He will give me the desires of my heart.
I struggle with His statement to Abraham that “I am your shield and your very great reward.” There were so many promises He made to Abraham that he didn’t see fulfilled in his lifetime, and Hebrews 11 talks about others too who died without seeing their desire – and who died TO see their Desire. This is a paradox to me, the giving with the taking away, the laying down your life to find it again.
I’m still thinking this through, but feeling that He is leading me to prepare for more weddings, even though I can’t see them right now. I’m walking out a little on faith. Maybe a lot on faith. But the faith to ask. That’s what I’m looking for right now, to ask believing that He wants to give good things because He is God, not just because I deserve them or need them or desire them. I’ve known so many people who sided with Elihu, that fourth friend of Job’s who gave Job the what-for, saying “he was right, because God didn’t have Job make a sacrifice for him.”
But what I have seen since God handed me Job’s story when I was struggling with God using me and giving me nothing that I wanted, is that Elihu was young, that He knew God, but was unable to understand the specifics of the story God was working out for Job’s heart. God wanted to tell Job who He was. God wrestled with Jacob, who He had to limit in order to save his life. He is not the sort of God who expects blind obedience in exchange for due blessing.
Every single bride I had this year was a real person who didn’t want to get sucked into what she felt was the “machine” of the wedding industry. Every single bride I had built her wedding around the little things that meant the most to her. Every single bride I had became a friend who trusted me to see her heart and remember her wedding day the way she wanted to remember it. Every single bride I had gave me a wedding to shoot that gave me life too. I know beyond a doubt that God planned each bride this year just for me, and just for my heart, and that He planned me for them too.
I don’t expect less from Him in 2014. I’m not afraid of God’s ability to provide more than I can ask or imagine. I think I’m just scared that I’m not ready to do the work yet. And I’m a little scared of the loss that always comes with life and investing more and desiring more and being given more.
(*And she wanders off down the rabbit trail of “perfect love casting out fear…”*)