Answered prayer — five years later

(By Erik)

On Tuesday Jeanie and I attended the annual faculty/staff dinner at Oklahoma Christian University, where I received my five-year pin.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been five years since I started writing for The Christian Chronicle (close to six, actually — my first day on the job was Aug. 18, 2001). It’s been an amazing experience.

One of my favorite parts of the job is getting to travel outside the country. In fact, I just made my third trip to Guatemala. While packing for the trip, I was looking for some scratch paper and found an old notebook with the word “Accounting” on the front.

It had some notes from an accounting course I audited in graduate school and a few journal-type entries, including a couple of prayers that I wrote down while I was living in Savannah, Ga., and working for the Savannah Morning News.

Here are some excerpts from a prayer dated May 8, 2000. This would have been about a month before I turned 27.

Reading this was a humbling experience — when I considered what God’s done in the years since.

Father, I’ve always known exactly what I wanted — to be a famous writer, or just to be successful at something …

But lately that’s not enough. I lack focus and I don’t know why. …

I need you to give me some direction here. Do I just need a vacation, or is it something more? I don’t want to just hop from paper to paper all my life, and eventually I’m going to need to make more money one of these days, too.

So what do I do here? Just wait for you to give me a sign? It’s been more than a year, and I’m terribly unhappy with the direction my life is going. I’m not meeting people, I’m not really advancing as a journalist, and — most importantly — I don’t think I’m really growing as a Christian. …

Should I stay single forever? I don’t know — certainly it’s better at this salary level — right ? I hate the feeling of loneliness, but I guess this is the way it needs to be if I ever go overseas. Is that what I want? … Help me figure it out, please.

I do want to get married and have kids someday, but I will submit to your will for me. I must admit I’m a little angry at you for putting me in the situation where I look desperate, but I realize that’s because I’m overly fixated on what other people think.

So what am I asking for here? Wisdom — wisdom to know if the decisions I make will be good ones or not. I also want you to bring someone into my life — a female — with all due speed, or reveal to me a way to get overseas or go on whatever solo adventure I’m supposed to go on.

I realize that I’m asking for grandiose schemes when all you want me to do is dip in the muddy water seven times. If I’m to stay here and just help the people I can help, let me find satisfaction in that. Let me enjoy serving. And make me a servant, regardless of where I end up.

Please give me a radical change of heart, God. Let me strive to be like your son. Let me radiate light so that others can see you as I do. Help me to grow. Give me strength.

Pretty whiny, I know!

It was about a year later that I found out about the job at the Chronicle. It sounded anything but grandiose — it sure wasn’t The Washington Post.

But something about the job seemed right — and the people seemed absolutely great. So I moved out here to Oklahoma. A few months later I met Jeanie. On June 14 we’ll celebrate our fourth anniversary.

I asked God for one or the other — a wife or a chance to travel. I didn’t think that both could exist in the same universe. But now, through my work at the Chronicle, I’ve traveled to nearly 20 countries covering the work of the church. It’s an absolute delight to be able to do what I do. I can’t imagine a better job.

And I can’t imagine a better wife, of course!


I think we limit our prayers sometimes. Luckily, God knows best.

Jeremiah 29:11-13 — "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.