Have you ever felt the need to fight for anything? Before I knew Christ there was a popular song I enjoyed. It was about declaring the right to party! Those were my wilderness days, very much like the wandering Israelites. Then my heart began to seek the face of the Lord and the fight turned to finding a quiet space and time to communicate with him and to show people I was serious about this alone time.

Now, I am a bit older and wiser and my eyes have been opened to see there is power in words. Fighting for my right to party in 1987 took me to my kitchen floor in addiction. Fighting for my God-time took me to my heart in addiction for God through Jesus. During one of these quiet times I felt the Spirit reminding me of who I am–a peacekeeper and a messenger. I heard, “It’s what you asked for.” I thought, “How and when did I ask for all of this?” My mind went to the Sunday mornings I stood in the church choir before I went AWOL from the church. I sang with my heart but I didn’t realize God was taking me seriously and had set about a plan. 

The song I so vividly remember hitting my heart was “The Prayer of Saint Francis.” “Lord,” is the very first word and should have been a clue for me. “Make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon. Where there is doubt, faith. Where there is despair, hope. Where there is darkness, light, and where there’s sadness, joy. O master grant that I may never seek so much to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand and to be loved as to love; for it is in giving that we receive, and in dying that we’re born to eternal life. Amen.” 

That song describes what my life has been right up until the last line which is yet to come. I didn’t know as a teenager that the desires of God had already been planted in my heart, enough that I would ask for it from my soul, unconsciously. It took about forty years for my “Aha!” moment. God hears every word. What are you asking of the Lord in the deep of your heart? 

“Let those redeemed by ADONAI say it.” Psalm 107:2