Month: September 2013

Categories
Christian Living

Where Is The “Good” That God Promised Me?

Ummm…. Excuse Me, God… But just so You know… This life of mine ain’t always working out the way I think it should. And if I remember the Scriptures right, You said You came that I might have abundant life and that You would always work for the good of those who love You… Well I love You, so what seems to be the problem?

I don’t know about you, but it doesn’t always seem that God is working things together for my good. Sometimes life is stressful, sometimes it might even seem downright miserable. What is going on?

God tells me to trust Him to provide for all my needs. I am told to hunger and thirst after His righteousness… to seek Him first… and all of my other needs will be met.

I read these passages in the Bible that tell me if I will just keep seeking to be like Jesus and trusting in God’s plans, then I will have everything I need and even more than I could imagine. But it doesn’t seem that way to me on the difficult, stressful days. Some things that aren’t good are happening to me. So what is the problem? Is God not faithful to His promises? Or is my definition of “good” at odds with His definition?

When I ask these questions He reminds me – I am just a child, and He is the loving Father. You know what parents realize – sometimes what a child wants is not what he or she needs. Many times a parent knows what is truly good for a child, but that child wants immediate gratification or has wrong motives, and a parent says “no” to a request, because they are seeking the child’s greater good. And so sometimes I might not realize that what I think I want might not be for my own good, but God can look down the road and see what I truly need.

The other thing I have to remember is that God didn’t promise me that life would always be a bed of roses. Just look at the life of Jesus, the disciples, the prophets, and all the martyrs. Sometimes instead of the rose petals, we just get “stuck” with the thorns! We live in a sin-filled world of evil. Sometimes, because of the choices and consequences of sin in myself or others, I will face tragedy and pain. But God says that when I encounter those times, He will walk right beside me and keep working to bring good out of it for me.

I think the problem is that I have defined life to be all about me instead of all about Him. Maybe my definition of good needs to be more along the lines of Paul. To live is to live for Christ and that is a great joy no matter the consequences I encounter along the way, and to die would be even greater because I would then be with Him. But that is surely a hard place to get to.

Any thoughts on how we can reorient our thoughts such that we see living for Him and serving Him as our “good,” even when life gets hard?

Categories
Worship

Seeking Can Be Serious Business

So my cell phone is lost, and I must’ve left it on silent. Calling it from another phone isn’t working. I’ve looked in the usual spots on the kitchen counter, the nightstand, the desk. No luck. Now I’m looking in every room. I’ve searched high and low, near and far. I’ve even looked in the crazy places – under the car seats, in the refrigerator, between the couch cushions. The phrase “hide & seek” is taking on a new meaning.

I’m sure you’ve had a similar experience – one where you had to seek for something important that you just couldn’t find. How long did you search? How serious were you about finding it?

If we are serious about finding something important, we will seek for it intensely and for a long time…you’ll do all you can to seek it out.

So… am I seeking God with the same intensity that I have for my lost cell phone?

Can I say that I am truly seeking God with a 5 minute prayer time? With short little prayer times and no significant time alone with Him without distractions, can I truly say I sought God and His will today? Seeking Him means I should be setting a “big chunk” aside each day, as well as working to be more constant in prayer throughout the day.

I need both types of prayers, but I know that it takes more than 5 minutes, more than 10, to truly seek God and His heart and will.

Are you really “seeking” God in your prayer time?
Fortunately, He is not lost like a silent cell phone, so that when we are ready to seek Him, we will find Him. But it also takes the discipline to set aside significant time to hear from His heart!

And don’t worry, we called in the FBI search party. They sent out the tracking hounds and finally found my cell phone!

Categories
Worship

Learning to Pray in God’s Will

Do you ever wonder if we have been taught to pray incorrectly?

Have we tried to use God as our genie? Or maybe we’ve thought of Him more like Santa Claus – hoping that if we are “good enough” that He will give us the things on our wishlist.

Our prayers often seem to lean in that direction. But God is not a genie we can manipulate when we feel like it, nor is He a jolly spy in a red suit who is “always watching” so as to put you on the gift-getting list when you meet his “good enough” standard. (Which is kinda creepy when you think about it!)

But God IS always at work and wants us to be working with Him. He wants us to talk to Him about things that He cares about. And what He most cares about is the spiritual condition of people. That’s why Jesus went to the cross. He didn’t go to the cross to fulfill my my desires of more stuff, and though He cares about my physical condition, that’s not why He went to the cross, either. No, He went for my spiritual situation to be changed from death… to life! So if God is most concerned with spiritual matters, then what should we focus our prayers on?

However, we do not spend time praying about spiritual things near as much as we do for physical things. In the Bible, we see prayers about confession of sins for individuals and the nations, we see prayers that go on and on about adoring and worshiping God’s characteristics and His laws, we see prayers about bringing glory to God, we see prayers about revival and turning people’s hearts back to Him, we see prayers about lost people coming into His kingdom.

In the Bible we see prayers that are focused on God’s will, and yet we often do not pray that way. We spend more time praying for the increased comfort of those who are already saved (us and our family and friends) than we do praying for the eternal destination of those who have no relationship with Jesus.

Perhaps we need a change. Perhaps we need to use the model of the Bible more than whatever model taught us to pray about the physical.

If we want to receive God’s blessings and have our prayers answered, I believe that we must ask, seek, and knock with prayers that are in-line with God’s will. He is not going to give us every one of our heart’s desires until every one of our heart’s desires are exactly in line with His will. But if we ask where He is at work and how we should pray, He will show us and we will be more blessed than ever before.

What do you think are some of the things He most cares about that we need to include in our prayers for today?