Visible Answers to Prayer

This was an interesting line of thinking. Let me know what you think of it.

I was reflecting about prayer. I pray for a lot of things. But I don't see the changes, the effects of my prayers, as much as maybe I would like.

Part of that reason, no doubt, is because I pray for less-concrete things, and for people that are a long ways away. But for whatever reason, I was thinking about it, wishing that I was seeing more results, at least more visible results, from my prayers.

And since Jesus is my standard, I was thinking about him. He sure saw visible answers to his prayers in the stories the Gospels told, didn't he? I’m not trying to get big headed about it or something, but if Jesus gets to see the answers to his prayers so comfortably so quickly so easily, what's wrong with me wanting to see visible answers to my prayers quickly, easily?

So just thinking on that for a while (technically, that’s called “meditating”). I realized that the excuses I was given as a curious child had some truth in them: we don't actually see every single event that Jesus was involved in. It is maybe just a little bit presumptive to assume that every single prayer of his was answered quickly, visibly, dramatically.

So I consider that. And I realized, yep, it’s an excuse all right. It's an excuse for people who don't see miracles, maybe. Maybe it's an excuse for people who are tired of trying, or who never really tried hard in the first place. Or something. It’s a way of justifying not expecting to walk in the things we see Jesus, our example, walk in.

But the reality is that every single time that we see Jesus praying, we see dramatic, visible answers. We don't ever see his prayers unanswered. (Yes, there are some times that he prays that we don't know what he's praying for, so we can't tell whether those were answered or not. That’s not our issue today.)

So I was asking father if this desire to see visible answers quickly is appropriate, if this is a good thing to ask for.

Immediately, Romans 14:23b came to mind. “Anything not of faith is sin.”

When I'm asking a question and something pops in my head like that, I tend to assume that it is related, that it’s something of an answer. And I also try not to jump to conclusions, so I reflected: I thought about it some more.

And I realized something.

If I need visible answers to my prayers in order to pray with faith, in order to have confidence that father is hearing me and doing things, then that's not faith. If I need to see, then I'm basing my prayers, my life, on sight, not on faith.

Oops. There’s my answer.

Jesus got to see immediate answers to his prayers. That does not mean that his prayer life was based on what he saw. We know from the gospel stories that he took a fair bit of time alone with God, often in the wee hours.

I have had times where I knew the answer was coming before I encountered the situation. I’ve had many times when I knew what I was supposed to pray beforehand.

That certainly fits the facts as we know them: Jesus saw the answers in the spirit, by faith, when he was talking to Dad in the morning. When he encountered the situation during the day, his response was based on his encounters with father in the wee hours, not on what he saw in that circumstance.

So even though he saw the answers as he prayed, his prayers were not built on the foundation of what he saw. His prayers were on the foundation of his time with Father in the morning. He was walking by faith, not by sight, even though he could see.

The thought drifted across my mind, “If you always get to see the immediate answers to your prayers, would you be walking by faith? Or would you be walking by what you see?”

And as translated by Romans 14:23, that question is would I be walking by faith? Or would I be walking in sin?

So I am considering the idea that I need to be more intentional about seeing the answers that I am praying for in the spirit, in my private times with Father, before I look for them in public.

And maybe I need to guard my wishes. It appears that I might have been wishing for an easy way to walk in sin. No wonder Father doesn't want to answer that prayer.

So how do you see it? 

Fall Harvest begins in Spring

Last fall, I had a revelation about my garden, and it’s impacting how I prepare for this spring’s planting.

I was wandering through my garden last fall, cleaning out some of the plants that had finished: the tomatoes were winding down, the broccoli, cauliflower & cabbages were composting, the first crop of lettuce has gone and the second crop is winding down. The zucchini (there’s always too much zucchini) was feeding the chickens.

And I was inspecting the peppers and winter squashes and such that were still working on completing the produce that they’re working on. They were ripening nicely, getting ready for their own harvest shortly.

But there’s something of a problem, and this requires a bit of confession, and something of a backstory.

In the spring, I plant starts into my garden, but nearly all of the young plant starts come from my own greenhouse. In fact, I plant the pepper seeds around Christmas every year, and I plant the tomatoes and squashes later in the winter. I label them and nurture them as the seedlings grow into strong plants so they’re ready for a running start in my garden when the weather warms up enough for them.

End of backstory.

As I was wandering through my garden last fall, inspecting the results of my spring starts, and that’s where I discovered a couple of problems. I'm trying to learn from that lesson this spring.

One of the problems was pretty evident, and had been for a while: I hadn’t labeled the starts all that well. (And actually, the seed company that provided me with seeds also failed in this.)

I had a number of pepper plants that were labeled “bell peppers” that were producing a variety of other kinds of strange peppers. (That one is at least partly on the seed packager.) And I had a large number of tomato plants labeled as slicing tomatoes (my favorites are Brandywine and Cherokee Purple) that were producing thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of cherry tomatoes.

The other problem is where the real confession happens. We put pepper and tomato and squash plants out into the garden in May (we're getting close to planting season now!), but I'd been tending these little plants for many months, sometimes five or six months! These were my babies!

Here’s a secret I learned: some varieties of peppers apparently germinate at a higher rate than others. So I had a modest number of the bell peppers, particularly the baby-bell peppers that I value more highly (and many of those, thanks to mislabeling, weren’t actually bell peppers, but I’ve already groused about that one). Ghost peppers were particularly difficult to germinate (I use dried super-hot peppers as a pesticide: it keeps the squirrels off the bird-feeders pretty well!).

It turned out that fairly hot varieties, Lemon Drop peppers, Scotch Bonnet peppers and especially Sugar Rush peppers germinate really well. They also survive the first several weeks in a greenhouse at a better rate than baby bell peppers or ghost peppers.

So when it came to be time to transplant young peppers into the garden in the spring, I had a few bell pepper plants (far fewer than I thought I did, thanks to mislabeling), fewer baby bell plants, and only one ghost pepper plant (that turned out to be something else entirely). But I had dozens and dozens of the varieties that I only wanted one or two plants.

I had the same problem with tomato starts and squash starts: too many starts, and not the starts I really wanted.

But they were my babies. I’d already given away as many as I could find homes for. I couldn’t just toss my babies, whom I’d been caring for for so long into the compost. They’re like my children.

So I planted them in my garden, of course.

That was last spring. In the fall, I saw the error of my ways. It turns out that those fairly hot varieties (that I only wanted one or two plants of) are incredibly prolific. So I have dozens of huge plants bearing hundreds of fruits I’m not all that interested in that are crowding out the fewer (and smaller) plants whose fruit I really value.

And I realized that my choices to be “merciful” to those plants last spring had doomed my pepper harvest (and my tomato harvest, and my winter squash harvest).

And as I grumbled to myself, I heard Father clear his throat. “Ahem…..”

And suddenly I realized this is a life lesson. 

Somebody – and it wasn’t a gardener – once said, “Don’t plant seeds that you don’t want to harvest,” and a famous guy once said. “If you don’t like your harvest, change the seeds you’re planting.”

I need to change the seeds I’ve been planting.

But I can’t do that. Not now, anyway. That’s a change I need to make before I start planting my starts in the dead of winter. That’s a change I need to make when I’m getting ready to plant seeds in the dead of winter.

Fortunately, with the wrong peppers and wrong tomatoes and wrong squashes bearing fruit in my garden, that’s not a complete disaster. I can harvest them when they’re ripe and feed them to the chickens (chickens eat all sorts of things!) and then the chickens will give me good eggs all this year and great compost next spring.

But choices in my life, that’s a bigger issue. I’m still limping through the harvest of poor choices in previous seasons. I can’t change those choices back then, but I can learn the lessons and make better choices today and through this transition season that’s upon us.

If I don’t like my harvest, I need to change the seeds I’m planting.