I keep banging up against a problem. I sit in church and nearly every week hear prayer requests for healing and financial break through accompanied by words that say God answers all prayers and can take care of all problems. That He can do it isn’t the issue, that He will do it? Well that’s another matter entirely and one my life doesn’t seem to bear out.
God has definitely shown up in my life, somehow we’ve always managed to pay the bills and have food on the table but living the blessed life as western religion seems to paint as the goal, I’m not close to attaining that. No matter how much we prayed for a financial breakthrough (whether lotto or work using our gifts or talents) in all our time together my hubby and I haven’t even been able to both be working full time at the same time. My husband gets a job and God tells me to stop working. I think I can’t possibly be hearing right and all of a sudden in the space of a week or so I go from being a valued employee to don’t give her any work. And that has been the pattern of our marriage.
The truth is I don’t know God’s plan, I wish I did, but I do know that every time I let go of the things I really enjoy, like writing and performing, I always come back to them and yet I haven’t had a break through in either of those areas.
Lack of monetary windfall isn’t the only thing. Healing is another big one. When my mother was diagnosed the last time with the cancer they’d missed a short time previously riddled through her body, they told her time was short. What was my prayer? I’m sure I did pray for healing but I remember knowing almost straight away that healing wasn’t going to happen. My prayer then became ‘fine, take her if you must but she lives long enough to see her first grandchild.’ I wasn’t pregnant at the time, though we had started trying but as everyone knows that doesn’t mean a lot. Long story short our daughter was three months old when my mother died. Right to the end people were praying for healing and telling her she was going to be fine. Someone even suggested the reason she hadn’t been healed was that her faith wasn’t strong enough. Do you have any idea what that does to a person? Besides if anyone had faith it was my mother. It might be worth remembering here that the bible says;
He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can
say to this mulberry tree ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea’ and
it will obey you.
Luke 17:6
It seems to me it’s us who try to quantify faith not God. Faith is faith, I just wonder if we think of faith as a form of currency and expect to get a certain payout from it.
It’s like we forget that sometimes God’s answer is no. Paul asked for the thorn in his side to be removed three times and God said no (2 Cor 12:7 & 8). Jesus asked that the cup be taken from him, and that didn’t happen either (Luke 22:39-46). It also may be an idea to remember that after Christ was baptised the first thing the Spirit did was drive him into the desert for forty days (Matt 4:1-11). Most of us haven’t gone without anything for that length of time, not anything that really mattered; food, shelter, heat. Of course there are those who have but for a majority of us professing faith in the western world, we wouldn’t know what that was like. Jesus went from affirmation to extreme difficulty.
The other thing that goes hand in hand with this is temptation. We are often told that Christ was tempted in every way (not all in the desert would be my guess) but do we ever think about what that means. Obviously we think about sex but that doesn’t come close to covering all kinds of temptation. We can be tempted financially, by what our idea of success is, by comfort or stuff. Not everyone’s weakness is the same thing.
We seem to be under the impression that God’s will for us is comfort and convenience. Where do we get that from?
I suppose comfort is relative. A lot of us have a roof over our heads, clothes to wear and food in our stomachs, yet still we strive for other things to make our lives more comfortable. How many people would just like to have enough food in their bellies or clean drinking water?
We also like things to be convenient, fast food, fast cars, fast communication. When things happen to disrupt any number of things in our lives, like just when you start to save for a holiday the car breaks down, we get pissed. Or maybe that’s just another one of those things that only applies to me.
There have been times in my life when I’ve wondered if God has dropped the ball. Even times when I’ve been convinced I was doing what God wanted me to do and things have still gone somewhat pear shaped, not even close to working out the way I figured they would. I thought by doing God’s will, blessings would rain down on me and I would finally have some of the things I wanted like some sort of financial security or professional success. You really only need to read the bible to realise what a screwy idea that is. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen and I’m still hoping and praying for both those things, with times of varying frustration admittedly, but I’m working on not making my happiness or contentment reliant on those things happening. I’m working on walking the path that Paul walked all those years ago:
I know what it is to be in need and I know what it is to have
plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and
every situation whether well fed or hungry, whether living in
plenty or in want.
Phil 4:12
I’m sure more want to walk the path that’s smooth, the one where money falls out of the sky. I’m being facetious, I know money doesn’t fall out of the sky, but I do know people who just seem to think about wanting something and someone gives it to them. My own daughter has a tendency to say she wants something and gets it from people who didn’t even know she wanted it. Even complete strangers give her stuff. It’s hard to be jealous of your own daughter though, especially when I want the best for her and can’t afford to give her everything she wants.
Not that I think it’s particularly wise to give kids everything they want. In the same way we don’t give our kids everything they ask for God doesn’t give us everything we ask for. He doesn’t explain it to us but we have to trust He knows better, it’s like those times we do things our kids don’t like because we know better. But knowing that doesn’t necessarily make accepting it any easier.
We want things to go our way all the time but unfortunately life isn’t like that. David spent years being hunted by Saul, Moses spent years tending sheep in the desert, Job lost all he had, Paul was jailed, John was exiled and Jesus gave his life. All were faithful people but they were also people who experienced hardship. In the words of James:
Consider it pure joy my brothers, whenever you face trials of many
kinds because you know that the testing of your faith develops
perseverance. Perseverance must finish it’s work so that you may be
mature and complete, not lacking in anything.
James 1:2-4
We don’t like to think about verses like these because lets face it who wants to persevere in trials. That doesn’t change the fact those verses are there or that it is a call placed before all Christians. Notice it doesn’t say you’ll live in overwhelming financial abundance and physical perfection. It says you won’t lack, which suggests to me need not want and need can be relative.
This call for perseverance manifests differently for each of us and I don’t know why but if I had to guess I’d say it was because God has different callings for each of us. Different people can survive different things and different people can prosper in different circumstances. We all walk different paths but we don’t walk them alone. God said he would never leave us or forsake us and as an added bonus He brings people into our lives to journey with us, some for the short term and some for the long haul.
We may not like it but journey on we must if we wish to grow, to live and not just exist. The path isn’t always easy and even though I’ve taken detours along the way I always find myself back on this path because God is true to is word and has never given me more than I can handle, as long as I remember I don’t have to handle it alone.
God has definitely shown up in my life, somehow we’ve always managed to pay the bills and have food on the table but living the blessed life as western religion seems to paint as the goal, I’m not close to attaining that. No matter how much we prayed for a financial breakthrough (whether lotto or work using our gifts or talents) in all our time together my hubby and I haven’t even been able to both be working full time at the same time. My husband gets a job and God tells me to stop working. I think I can’t possibly be hearing right and all of a sudden in the space of a week or so I go from being a valued employee to don’t give her any work. And that has been the pattern of our marriage.
The truth is I don’t know God’s plan, I wish I did, but I do know that every time I let go of the things I really enjoy, like writing and performing, I always come back to them and yet I haven’t had a break through in either of those areas.
Lack of monetary windfall isn’t the only thing. Healing is another big one. When my mother was diagnosed the last time with the cancer they’d missed a short time previously riddled through her body, they told her time was short. What was my prayer? I’m sure I did pray for healing but I remember knowing almost straight away that healing wasn’t going to happen. My prayer then became ‘fine, take her if you must but she lives long enough to see her first grandchild.’ I wasn’t pregnant at the time, though we had started trying but as everyone knows that doesn’t mean a lot. Long story short our daughter was three months old when my mother died. Right to the end people were praying for healing and telling her she was going to be fine. Someone even suggested the reason she hadn’t been healed was that her faith wasn’t strong enough. Do you have any idea what that does to a person? Besides if anyone had faith it was my mother. It might be worth remembering here that the bible says;
He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can
say to this mulberry tree ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea’ and
it will obey you.
Luke 17:6
It seems to me it’s us who try to quantify faith not God. Faith is faith, I just wonder if we think of faith as a form of currency and expect to get a certain payout from it.
It’s like we forget that sometimes God’s answer is no. Paul asked for the thorn in his side to be removed three times and God said no (2 Cor 12:7 & 8). Jesus asked that the cup be taken from him, and that didn’t happen either (Luke 22:39-46). It also may be an idea to remember that after Christ was baptised the first thing the Spirit did was drive him into the desert for forty days (Matt 4:1-11). Most of us haven’t gone without anything for that length of time, not anything that really mattered; food, shelter, heat. Of course there are those who have but for a majority of us professing faith in the western world, we wouldn’t know what that was like. Jesus went from affirmation to extreme difficulty.
The other thing that goes hand in hand with this is temptation. We are often told that Christ was tempted in every way (not all in the desert would be my guess) but do we ever think about what that means. Obviously we think about sex but that doesn’t come close to covering all kinds of temptation. We can be tempted financially, by what our idea of success is, by comfort or stuff. Not everyone’s weakness is the same thing.
We seem to be under the impression that God’s will for us is comfort and convenience. Where do we get that from?
I suppose comfort is relative. A lot of us have a roof over our heads, clothes to wear and food in our stomachs, yet still we strive for other things to make our lives more comfortable. How many people would just like to have enough food in their bellies or clean drinking water?
We also like things to be convenient, fast food, fast cars, fast communication. When things happen to disrupt any number of things in our lives, like just when you start to save for a holiday the car breaks down, we get pissed. Or maybe that’s just another one of those things that only applies to me.
There have been times in my life when I’ve wondered if God has dropped the ball. Even times when I’ve been convinced I was doing what God wanted me to do and things have still gone somewhat pear shaped, not even close to working out the way I figured they would. I thought by doing God’s will, blessings would rain down on me and I would finally have some of the things I wanted like some sort of financial security or professional success. You really only need to read the bible to realise what a screwy idea that is. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen and I’m still hoping and praying for both those things, with times of varying frustration admittedly, but I’m working on not making my happiness or contentment reliant on those things happening. I’m working on walking the path that Paul walked all those years ago:
I know what it is to be in need and I know what it is to have
plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and
every situation whether well fed or hungry, whether living in
plenty or in want.
Phil 4:12
I’m sure more want to walk the path that’s smooth, the one where money falls out of the sky. I’m being facetious, I know money doesn’t fall out of the sky, but I do know people who just seem to think about wanting something and someone gives it to them. My own daughter has a tendency to say she wants something and gets it from people who didn’t even know she wanted it. Even complete strangers give her stuff. It’s hard to be jealous of your own daughter though, especially when I want the best for her and can’t afford to give her everything she wants.
Not that I think it’s particularly wise to give kids everything they want. In the same way we don’t give our kids everything they ask for God doesn’t give us everything we ask for. He doesn’t explain it to us but we have to trust He knows better, it’s like those times we do things our kids don’t like because we know better. But knowing that doesn’t necessarily make accepting it any easier.
We want things to go our way all the time but unfortunately life isn’t like that. David spent years being hunted by Saul, Moses spent years tending sheep in the desert, Job lost all he had, Paul was jailed, John was exiled and Jesus gave his life. All were faithful people but they were also people who experienced hardship. In the words of James:
Consider it pure joy my brothers, whenever you face trials of many
kinds because you know that the testing of your faith develops
perseverance. Perseverance must finish it’s work so that you may be
mature and complete, not lacking in anything.
James 1:2-4
We don’t like to think about verses like these because lets face it who wants to persevere in trials. That doesn’t change the fact those verses are there or that it is a call placed before all Christians. Notice it doesn’t say you’ll live in overwhelming financial abundance and physical perfection. It says you won’t lack, which suggests to me need not want and need can be relative.
This call for perseverance manifests differently for each of us and I don’t know why but if I had to guess I’d say it was because God has different callings for each of us. Different people can survive different things and different people can prosper in different circumstances. We all walk different paths but we don’t walk them alone. God said he would never leave us or forsake us and as an added bonus He brings people into our lives to journey with us, some for the short term and some for the long haul.
We may not like it but journey on we must if we wish to grow, to live and not just exist. The path isn’t always easy and even though I’ve taken detours along the way I always find myself back on this path because God is true to is word and has never given me more than I can handle, as long as I remember I don’t have to handle it alone.
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