Answer to Prayer

I've found that God answers our prayers. He really does. But we have to be careful how we word those prayers and not assume that how we see fit to have those prayers answered is actually how they will be answered.

Case and point:

We've been praying about a career for Bob. He's interested in real estate and has been around that and property management his entire life. He's been considering becoming a real estate agent and then seeing how that career and knowledge can tie into property management. But he's been working this dead-end job at a plumbing supply warehouse. It was a decent job for a good company, but it was more of a means to an end for Bob, and nowhere near where he wanted to stay for the next 10 years. The problem was it takes up his entire day. And he started liking it less and less every day, so when he'd get home from work the last thing he wanted to do was work on something else. But he tried.

So Bob had been praying for this career choice. He prayed for the ability to pursue it so that he could provide enough stable income for his family in the future. He saw the answer as being able to go work all day, then come home and work on this career all evening, and then still have time to play and surf to keep his sanity plus spend time with myself and Graham.

But that answer just wasn't happening. 

Things at work have been going fine for Bob, aside from his slow and steady decline of satisfaction in his current occupation. His supervisor liked him fine, as well as most of the guys he was working with. He was just getting a new gas card for the truck he was driving. And then last Friday at lunch the HR person called him into the office and told him his "services aren't needed anymore" for the company.

What the what?

He came home 30 minutes later and went straight to the shower, partially to clean himself up because doing what he did at work makes him sweaty and dirty, but mostly to settle down and cool off because he was really upset over losing this job.

All weekend we talked about it here and there. We mostly tried to have fun, relax a little, and figure out what to do this week.

Once getting past the anger over the whole thing, we've realized that now Bob has plenty of time to go after this real estate thing. He has plenty of time to do that as well as surf and spend time with his family.

Oh, Heavenly Father... Thank you for answering our prayers in a not-so-expected and yet oh-so efficient way.

We haven't figured out this whole how-to-earn-money thing without that job, because we do still have bills to pay. But we have some plans. I have some ideas of what I'll do and Bob has some ideas of what he can do. Hopefully it will earn us enough to make it for a little while. Something will work out, because Heavenly Father answered Bob's prayers about finding the time and a way to pursue this career. He will surely answer our prayers about how to make ends meet and stay afloat at this turning point in our lives.

Here's to exercising a bit of faith and having the humility to continue accepting how God sees fit to answer our prayers to Him.