I think it was C.S. Lewis that said something like, "we don't want God's will because we are afraid it might hurt." I think this is particularly applicable when there is something we want and are afraid that God's will is going to keep it from us. As much as we want God's will, we want ours as well.
What makes this process more difficult is the understanding of God's will. It is easy to understand what I want but many times very hard to understand what God wants. It is easy to see where my will is going, and the benefits from it. But the benefit of God's direction is too often shrouded in mystery.
We often pray, straining to make faith happen, searching for some incantation or special prayer from the scriptures that will magically make the things happen that we are praying for. In our fervor to make things happen it is easy to forget a couple of important issues.These are two concepts, when we pray, that we need to keep in mind.
The first can be illustrate by this simple analogy:
The Bible tells me that if I have faith as a grain of mustard seed, I can say to a mountain move from here to there and it will move. (Matthew 17:20) I actually live very close to a beautiful mountain. It rises majestically to just over 10,000 feet. On parts of the mountain, in the midst of huge rocks, people have built houses. There is a major highway that has been cut through the foothills of the mountain. The highway is several miles from my house and often it would be much more convenient to be able to drive straight through the mountain rather than around it. I have thought that I might like to move the mountain so that my life would be easier when traveling. So what if I did? What if I decided to use my mustard seed faith one day and just move that mountain out of the way? My life would be so much more convenient. I would save perhaps an hour each time I went that way. But how would that affect the lives of the people who lived on the mountain, or worked on the mountain. Certainly if I moved the mountain into the sea, as one scripture says, there would be dire consequences for the people who happened to be at home at the time. The ski resort would certainly be put our of business. It might even cause major issues with the ocean levels and shipping. I think moving the mountain might be a bad idea.
Yes, this is a silly illustration but a very real concept in understanding the way we pray and the way we apply faith in our lives. As much as we feel we need something, in the terms of the affect of our prayers, there may be much more to consider.
When my prayers are not answered in the way that I see fit, I need to expand my mind and understand that God's ways are truly much more perfect than mine. His perspective is much wider than mine.(see Isaiah 55:8-9) God knows all the "what if's" of every way I pray and every way He could answer. My faith in Him has to carry me to the point that I am willing to trust His will over my own and that His will is really what is best.
I guess the mountain will stay where it is.
The other concept is one of understanding God's laws. Though His laws are designed for us, they do impact Him. God has chosen to abide by the laws He has set in place. Let's look at one such law, the law of reaping and sowing. This law is more common to the farmer but most of us understand it's basic concept. What you sow (plant), is what you reap (harvest). When I plant corn in the ground, I can never expect watermelons to grow. God has set this rule into motion and it will affect us as well as Him.
The more we understand God and His nature, the more we know what to expect of Him. When we understand his nature, we begin to see the way He relates to us and our prayers. Part of the understanding the nature of God is understanding His relationship to His own laws. God has decided to keep His own laws, when it come to His relationship with us. When He sets an order then it is establish forever and He doesn't change. (see Matthew 5:18) He will not overstep His choice to abide by His laws because of our petitions or even our needs. Remember though: He set things in order for our good. His laws are given to give us protection, guidance, instruction and spiritual success.
The law of reaping and sowing is very pertinent to how God answers prayer. Why? Because when we pray, we cannot expect God to go against His law to answer our prayers. Let's look at another simple illustration:
A young christian teenage girl decides that she will disobey God's law. She gets pregnant. This devastates her, her family, the church where she attends and will most likely make an impact on the influence in her personal witness, and ministry opportunities. She is truly sorry for her sin and cries out to God for His mercy and forgiveness. God, naturally, is full of grace and pardons her sin. But her prayer continues. "Lord, please make me unpregnant," she cries out.
It is very much within the power of God to make her unpregnant. There are definately many reasons we could see where her no longer being pregnant might solve many issues that will arise. But... You and I both know that the chances of God doing this is virtually nil. Why? Because of the laws that God has set in place.
Understand that despite our faith, God has a bigger perspective of how things need to be done, AND God is never going to step on His own laws to make sure we are pleased. As frustrating as this may be, we should also find a lot of solace knowing this. Knowing God's perspective comforts us in two ways. One is, that He knows enough to do best for all involved. The other is, that His eyes are also on us and our good. This is part of His perspective. Knowing that God doesn't go against His laws is also comforting because we can understand that He is constant in His reaction to us, and that His laws are a sure foundation for building lives on. His laws are right there, in black and white, and should never take us by surprise.
If you have had any experience with prayer, faith, or God, you will no doubt understand that God's way of answering prayer can be very frustrating, even disappointing. He often moves in ways we don't understand and seldom ask our recommendation or permission on matters. There are times He moves without the least evidence that He is, in fact, doing something.
There are times that our faith boils down to just believing that God is hearing our prayers and He is doing things that are best for us, in His timing.
Allowing our faith to be conditioned by what we see defeats the whole purpose of faith. (see 2 Corinthians 5:7) Faith is not about us figuring out what needs to happen and making that happen through a faith formula or properly worded prayer. Faith is more about setting God free to make the right decision and allowing Him to use His power to do so... and trusting that He will.
Sometimes faith/prayer seem to fail us. When the answer is about pain or frustration then we describe that as failure of our faith, or worse, God's lack of concern about our circumstance. But God uses pain and frustration. These may be a very sign that He is answering a prayer. His answer may come through those vehicles.
Trusting God is hard. It is not human in it's nature. As we are learning to trust Him, we are stepping out of our humanity and stepping into spirituality. It is a foggy, treacherous, gut-wrenching, foreign pathway to walk but God is taking us there. Just what might happen if we follow God into that realm of faith?
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