PERSONAL EMPOWERMENT
Nothing Happened
by DiAnne Malone
S
o you did everything, right? You
prayed; you listened; you prayed
again; you responded in love. Okay
good. Now what? What’s going to
happen next? Where is your reward? What
do you get?
The answer may disappoint. You may
not get anything. That’s right nothing, zilch,
nada. Well, you may not get what you want.
When I first started deliberately living
out the principles of God’s word, I idealized
the way God handled my obedience to Him.
Each time I did something “right” I imag-
ined God placing a shiny gold star beside
my name; after which I’d wait around for
my heavenly reward to drop out of the sky.
Most times, nothing ever dropped, at least
not the way I expected it.
Let me give you another example.
I remember one huge disagreement my
husband and I were having (I think it was
about listening). Anyway, I bowed out of
the argument quite gracefully, even though
deep down I was seething. In the mean-
time, I continued to treat him well, kept on
cooking his food (without putting Ex-Lax
in it), kept on fixing his plate, and kept on
putting it down. But, each time I went to
bed at night, I’d look up to heaven and say,
“Now Lord, get him. Convict him. Show
him what a treasure he has for a wife.”
It’s kinda like what Jonah did after
going to tell the people of Nineveh about
the goodness and grace of God. (Remember
he did this under duress.) After he finished
doing his thing, preaching and prophe-
sying, he went and sat on a hill, waiting for
God to kill the Ninevites. I imagine God
looking down at Jonah and thinking, “That
silly little man is gonna have a heatstroke
out there waiting for me to kill the people
I love, the people I told him to preach to,
the people I want to bring closer to me.” As
ignorant as Jonah was, God still protected
Him by allowing a plant to grow over him
to shade him from the sun.
www.himpowermagazine.com 27