Do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.-Philippians 4: 6-7

Now the people became like those who complain of adversity in the hearing of the Lord; and when the Lord heard it His anger was kindled and the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp.-Numbers 11:1

 ”This, then. Is how you should pray: ‘Our father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’- Matthew 6:9-13. 

 

God Knows Why We Knelt

I awoke this morning feeling relaxed.
And I basked in the sun warm and bright
But my reverie came to a startling halt
With my first thought of what happened last night.
As the shame slivered in, all joy disappeared
The warmth I’d so enjoyed was now gone.
My body and mind filled with remorse
Flooded by images of what I’d done wrong,

Life requires that we make many choices
And sometimes our choices bring peace.
Just as often, we make the unwise choice
That brings us right to our knees.
Those are the ones that bring desperation;
That cause panic when we get caught.
The ones from which we need to be saved,
Perhaps the only time we reach out to God.

But God’s not the source of our panic.
Nor, is He responsible for our peace.
It’s our choices that determine an outcome
And whether problems are solved or increased.
Yet, we use our prayers to bargain with God,
By offering Him a quid pro quo.
We promise to praise and glorify Him
If He’ll forgive one more debt that we owe.

But God loves us too much to make bargains,
Or to save us from that which we’ve sown.
Our worst mistakes often uncover some truths
But for consequences might never be known.
Therefore, God won’t usually rescue us
From the mistakes we choose to repeat;
He hopes that consequence might force us to see
Our actions of greed and deceit.

God wants us to praise and glorify Him
Through our desires, our deeds, and our voice.
But He will never force us to kneel to Him
So when we pray it must be our choice.
And we can never hide our feelings from God,
Whether we are praising or asking for help.
No matter what we say in our prayers
God will always know why we knelt.
© Linda Troxell 09/08/2018

 

When we kneel to praise God, I believe it fills Him with joy. He made us to worship and glorify Him and when we do, we create perfect harmony between us.  God wants to have a relationship with us and the only way that can happen is through prayer. So God wants to hear our prayers, He wants to have a two-sided relationship of love and commitment. He loves to hear our praise in our prayers and He wants to bless us. However, what about those times when we kneel and rush through words of praise only because we want something from God. How do you think God feels then? We know it doesn’t make Him happy. But does it make Him sad or angry, or does it frustrate Him? Or, perhaps He laughs at our foolish attempt to fool Him. I don’t know how it makes Him feel but I do know it is foolishness to think we can pull one over on God by pretending to worship Him when we really only want Him to meet our need. How many times do we have to be told that God knows our heart to understand that we can’t fool, nor manipulate God? But then maybe, we aren’t trying to fool God, maybe we are really trying to fool ourselves. Maybe by sticking in some insincere praise before our real request, we are attempting to convince ourselves that we are not being selfish or greedy or deceitful. Well, either way, it doesn’t work.

Let me make it clear that I don’t think God gets angry or sad when we ask Him for help or even for something material. I think that God loves for us to depend on Him and He loves to bless us and see us happy. Do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.-Philippians 4: 6-7. It is only when our prayers are consistently one-sided that we are in danger of vexing God. My guess, based on what Jesus told us about how to pray, is that God wants us to pray spontaneously and in our own voice. But that He wants each prayer to include certain elements. He wants a prayer in which we sincerely praise Him, and acknowledge His will and our desire to follow it. He wants us to thank Him for supplying us with all we need and to ask for His help in forgiving our brothers and sisters, as well as for us to repent of our sins. And finally, He wants us to ask for His protection so the Devil doesn’t lure us into sin. ”This, then. Is how you should pray: ‘Our father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.- Matthew 6:9-13.  After that, I think He is perfectly okay with us asking Him for things we want and need. The prayers that I believe anger or hurt God are those in which we spend only a few seconds praising Him in a cursory manner, or even worse, go on and on in phony flattery as if it were praise, and then spend long minutes describing in detail what we want from Him. Or spending a long time complaining about our life, then telling Him how we want Him to fix it, after which we tack on a bit of praise at the end as an afterthought.

Prayer is our way of interacting with God. It is our way of having a relationship with Him and a way of building our faith in Him. None of us is happy when we are in a relationship in which we feel taken advantage of or barely tolerated. How long would any of us stay in a relationship with someone who never contacted us unless they needed something? Or with someone who complained about their misery every time we talked but never asked about us?  Or, how many of us have been hurt by our teenage children who seem to disdain us unless they are in need of our money or our service? Do you think that is how God feels when our prayers seem to be only a way for us to ask Him for something? I think He probably does. Now the people became like those who complain of adversity in the hearing of the Lord; and when the Lord heard it His anger was kindled and the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp.-Numbers 11:1

So often we treat God as someone who will save us from any unpleasant or painful consequence life has to offer. We will make unwise choices or selfish choices or risky choices and when it turns out badly we ask God to save us from the consequences.  But God is not an enabler. He does not prevent us from facing the consequences of our behavior. Saving someone from negative consequences may seem like an act of love, but it’s actually an act of selfishness. We save those we love from consequences for our own comfort. There are several reasons for this, none of them love. We save people because we need to be in control; because we want something from them, usually for them to love, admire, or need us. Or we save them because we don’t want to experience the feeling their consequence brings us or the havoc it might wreak on our life. But as all parents know, allowing our children to face the consequences of their behavior, while painful, is the only way for them to learn to discern wise behavior from foolish behavior. And, of course, God knows that even more.

God knows that, as Paul said in Romans 5, suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character, and character, hope.–Romans 5:3-4. That is why God will allow us to be tested as Jesus was tested. Jesus spent 40 days in the desert being tempted by the Devil. Note that God did not tempt him but He allowed him to be tempted because God knew that Jesus would have to build his character and faith through suffering and perseverance if he was going to be successful in his mission. And God knows that we also need to build our character and faith to withstand the trials of being one of His children here on earth. So God will allow us, at the very least, to face the consequences of our own choices. And let’s face it, anything we have faced or will face is nothing in comparison to what Jesus suffered and endured. So, I think we can all expect more than just facing our consequences as God allows us to be tempted and tested to help build our faith. Real faith must be tested.  Is it really faith to believe in God and to trust Him when everything in our lives is humming along nicely? No, that’s not faith. Faith is to believe in God and trust Him when our lives seem to be shattered and we have nowhere to turn. So, in faith, we turn to God and through faith we believe He is good.

So maybe the next time we make a decision that turns out disastrously we might want to think about what to say to God before we begin to pray. Perhaps we could think about the last time we prayed just to tell God how much we appreciate Him. Or the last time we sincerely expressed our gratitude without a request attached to it. And if we find it’s been a while, or maybe even if it hasn’t, we might consider not asking Him to save us from this one. Maybe, instead, we should consider really making God happy by telling Him of our appreciation for all that He has done for us. By telling Him of our gratitude for all of the times He has kept severe consequences from harming us. Maybe this time we might want to tell Him we sincerely desire to learn from this mistake and we need His help in doing that. And then express our remorse for making such an unwise decision or engaging in such an unwise behavior. We could follow that up by asking Him to give us the strength to endure our natural consequence as well as His comfort while we do.

For most of us, this would be a difficult thing to pray. I know it goes against our sense of survival and I know it might be painful. But when we really love someone, there isn’t any pain we won’t endure for their wellbeing. Look at the pain God endured for us because He loves us. I think a prayer like this would serve two important purposes; I think it would really build our character and faith and I think it would make God very happy. Try it!