Just as the weather started to turn warm and the sun began to show her face among other signs of spring, our glorious air conditioner stopped working. As our thermostat began to show numbers beginning with seven, the entire Hahn house began melting down like a certain two-year-old who lives under its roof. In our family, we keep the temperature at a perfect 68 degrees. I know, some of you are aghast, but it is what it is, and I will not apologize for our high-maintenance air conditioning needs.
As we suffered through a few days and nights without cool air, the day finally came when someone could come out to see what was wrong. Before they arrived, I began to feel that slight panic rise in my chest as I knew that problems with air conditioners are typically expensive, and to be quite honest, we didn’t have much wiggle room in the budget. I found myself praying to God that the problem wouldn’t be huge and that we’d be able to afford whatever it cost.
As I prayed, another slight panic whispered in the back of my mind… “You shouldn’t be praying about this. This isn’t a big thing. God doesn’t need to concern himself with something so trivial. You should just accept whatever happens without asking for things to go your way.”
This banter in my mind is quite familiar, actually. I know to pray for the big stuff, like my marriage, my children, my church, suffering, the people in my life, health, and weighty decisions. I know that God desires for me to pour out my heart to Him regarding the things that take precedence and concern me and others. But anytime I pray for something seemingly small, I go back and forth in my mind on whether I should or shouldn’t offer even this to God.
In some ways, I feel that God is only concerned with the big parts of my life and not the small, and that by asking for His providence and grace in the small moments is a selfish thing to do. I even, at times, have believed that I’m maybe a little bit more holy because I “trust” God to work out the small things so I don’t even need to offer them to Him.
As I type these words out, I realize how ridiculous they sound. If a friend said these exact words to me, I would look her right in the eyes and remind her that God desires for every single aspect of her life to be brought to Him. Nothing is too small or meaningless to Him. He actually cares about what we care about and He actually desires good things for us. But for myself, that can be hard to believe.
My faith really grew when I was in college. Although Christ called me at a young age and I was baptized, I didn’t realize the full extent of what being a follower of Christ is until I was on my own in a dorm room with many decisions ahead of me. By God’s grace, I ended up babysitting for a family that attended a church I went to, and they quickly took me under their wing and discipled me as if I were their own. But because I so desperately wanted to change, so desperately wanted God to approve of me, and therefore for this family to approve of me, I headed down the road of legalism and began to hyper-focus on my behavior instead of my heart. It took many, many years for me to even realize this folly, and I am still a recovering legalist as a thirty-year-old wife and mother to this day.
As I’ve pondered why I struggle with praying to God about the “small” things, I can see my old legalism foe rearing its ugly head.
“You’ll be in better standing with God if you trust His plan,” it says. “You don’t need to share your small insecurities or desires with Him because what really matters is what He wills, and if you ask for something specific, it might come across that you don’t trust Him.”
My position with God is dependent on what I do or don’t pray to Him about. And this is a form of legalism. It’s sneaky because it’s of the mind. It’s embedded in the dark corners of my thoughts, in my most intimate moments of prayer. It’s easy to push past and not deal with because it’s only impacting me. But is it?
When we entertain the thought that small things don’t matter to God and they aren’t worth praying for, what we are really saying is we believe God doesn’t care about the everyday parts of our lives. And if He doesn’t care about the small details, what does that say about who we believe God really is? This legalism in the form of holding back in our prayers because God “doesn’t care” impacts so much more than we think. It impacts how we view God, which impacts how we view ourselves, which then impacts how we view the world.
I’ve found myself guarded and withholding of my heart before the Lord because I’ve been too concerned if what I’m praying for is “right” or “wrong”. I’ve found myself struggling to recognize joy in my everyday life because I’ve felt it’s holier to suffer. I’ve found myself casting judgment upon others who seem to be more carefree than me. All of these things stem from the lie that God doesn’t care.
It certainly matters what we pray. But it matters far more that we pray.
And God is not a god who delights in our suffering or hard times or is only concerned with our sanctification.
He is a God who is a Father. And fathers delight in their children. They delight in their joy. And they welcome an open heart, willing to share even the smallest of worries with their beloved.
The irony is that by trusting God with the small things, we are much more able to trust Him with the big things. And even when our prayers are not answered as we hoped, when our view of God is biblical and ordered rightly, we are able to continue trusting Him because we see Him for who He truly is… a Father who loves His children. It’s on Him to provide, not our prayers or our self-righteousness, even down to the smallest of details.
When the man finished working on our air conditioner, he wished us a good day and began to walk out the door. My husband quickly followed after him with our checkbook and mentioned we hadn’t paid him yet, to which the man answered, “It’s on me.”
And I knew then, the details matter to Him.
Logan Hahn
Logan is a part of our Christ’s Church family and also happens to be married to Spencer, our Men’s Discipleship Minister. She loves writing and reading and raising lovely little women.
Pictured here with her husband, Spencer, and daughters, Campbell, Everett, Gritton and Fayette.
