Tucked within our hearts, we each have a prayer. And not just any prayer.
This is the broken and desperate plea of our very souls. The one that drives us out of bed and onto our knees. The petition that consumes our thoughts and brings us to the throne room in humility and despair.
We pray for God to send us a breakthrough, a pillar of fire, a burning bush, or simply a sign. Something that tells us He has heard our cries and that help is on the way.
We want answers and those that fit into our time-frame and our set of expectations.
So, when God hands us an acorn, we feel abandoned and scorned.
"What have I done to deserve this?"
"Have I disappointed God in any way?"
"Were my prayers not strong enough?"
After all, who would want an acorn?
Acorns require care, nutrients, and worst of all, they demand time.
When is the last time any of us have dug a hole, dropped a seed in, and the next day a beautiful and mature tree stood in its place?
Things just don't happen that way. Seeds must be watered and grow roots. They must be developed and stabilized.
A harvest cannot be reaped if a seed is never sown.
For months and months, my heart has been burdened for the soul of one very dear friend and many nights it feels as though my prayers have just grazed the ceiling before falling in ashes all over me.
Earlier in 2015, God placed an acorn into the palm of my hand. I had no way of seeing when it would come and there was no possible way of forgetting it when it had.
Everywhere I went, I felt the acorn in my grasp. Quickly, the acorn became a burden and it began to cripple my walk with the Lord.
"But," I thought to myself. "Aren't blessings from God supposed to be joyous and wonderful?"
If that were the case, why then had I grown to resent the acorn God had given me?
Simple. I was still holding on to the acorn when we all know that trees do not grow from our own hands.
For an acorn to develop into an oak, the fruition of our relentless prayers, we must first hand it back to God.
We cannot save souls and we cannot heal our loved ones. But God can.
The acorn is God's promise to us, that His best is yet to come if we just hold on to Him and let go of our finite understandings.
It is all too easy to exhaust ourselves in futile attempts at ensuring the acorn grows. We can water it, provide artificial sunlight, and worry over that thing until it becomes an idol.
Pray to God in faith and in His perfect timing, a mighty blessing will sprout forth.
Hold on and believe that God's delay is not God's denial and that He can turn the process and the waiting into a powerful testimony for our good and for His glory.
