Pray AND Believe

Matthew 21:18-22 ~

Early in the morning, as he was returning to the city, he was hungry. Seeing a lone fig tree by the road, he went up to it and found nothing on it except leaves. And he said to it, “May no fruit ever come from you again!” At once the fig tree withered.

When the disciples saw it, they were amazed and said, “How did the fig tree wither so quickly?”

Jesus answered them, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you tell this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ it will be done. And if you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”

The week before my daughter's wedding I was really struggling with anxiousness about the weather. Her wedding venue was at a place with a renovated old stone barn that was beautiful. That's where the reception was to take place, but the ceremony was outdoors. The backup plan was to move into the reception hall, but it really wouldn't have been a great situation. 

As the wedding day approached the weather apps all showed 100% chance of showers and thunderstorms with gusty winds. I could feel my concern rising as the day approached. I found myself obsessively checking the weather multiple times a day to see if anything had changed.

Then one morning I was reading the above passage the words, "if you have faith AND do not doubt, it will be done" struck me. Now I know God isn't a Santa Claus who will do whatever we ask whenever we want it, but I also know He is a God who can do all things. The problem was while I was praying for the day to be nice, I don't think I was truly believing it. Deep in my heart I was worrying.

This passage in Matthew brought me up short and convicted me of my doubt. I stopped watching the weather and just started trusting that it would all work out. I did have a conversation with Emily at one point that we can't control the weather, but we can control our attitude about it. I decided that come what may I was going to trust the Lord and even if the weather didn't change I would have a good attitude.

The day of the wedding was overcast, but not raining. Emily's wedding was at 4 p.m. and we were busy all day getting set-up. About 2 p.m. I noticed it was getting darker and windy. By 3 p.m. there was torrential rain. Ugh. But, again, I just kept praying and trusting despite the fact that the gentleman that owned the place who kept showing me his weather app and telling me how bad it was supposed to be for the rest of the day! 😂

I kept thanking the Lord for how He was going to stop the rain and you know what? Twenty minutes before the ceremony was to start the sun came out and the rain stopped. Everyone scrambled to clean off the seats. The same gentleman came back to me and said with amazement, "You must be praying hard because three different radars show us in the bright green area with pouring rain and yet, the sun is out and the rain has stopped!" "The radar indicates we should be in the middle of a storm." I told him that I was indeed praying!

The rain stayed away and as we proceeded out at the end of the ceremony it started sprinkling a bit, but even that stopped and it stayed nice the rest of the night. Since the appetizers were outside on their patio that ended up being great.

I learned a lesson about not just praying, but actually believing that God will answer. That doesn't always mean He will answer exactly the way I want, but our answered prayer is tied to our faith or lack of it.

I am thankful that the Lord blew that storm away so my daughter had a beautiful memory. I'm also thankful for the lesson I learned in the process.