The hot dry sands of unanswered prayers can blow fierce against a life, sucking up faith and hope in its swirling storm; the pelting of its grains whipping with fury against a heart in need. A heart that has grown weary with waiting can feel it’s strength seeping out with every beat. Why is it that the little prayers seem to have a quicker flight time but the big ones that make your heart ache with the weight of sorrow, feel like they don’t make it to heaven? Is the weight so heavy it can’t take flight?
Life in the desert can be deceiving. The landscape changes often as the winds shift their course, and our vision gets obscured as the heat rises around us. It’s easy to become disoriented and lose our way. But, these sandstorms have their purifying purposes; an exfoliating of the unnecessary to make room for the necessary. Our thirst becomes more defined, refined, and designed. Storms re-orient us to the One whose heart weighed heavy with sorrow for a world, in wanderlust, to thirst for him. His weighted prayers opened up the heavens so that ours could enter in to the heart of God. Each word, whether whispered in sorrow or joy, in haste, or pleading, is received, heard and considered.
All desert storms, eventually give way to calm, and the heat gives way to the evening’s cool air. And our eyes are drawn up to the glorious night sky, as the needy heart begins to steady its rhythm once again in faith and hope.
“ Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.“ Hebrews11:1 NLT