I was on a faith board a bit ago, and saw someone bemoaning that either their faith wasn't good enough, or God didn't love them enough, because "I didn't get the ____________ I wanted."
Ahh....the state of Western Christianity. That we think that when things don't go our way it must be because of one of two things, that either we don't have enough faith or that God doesn't love us enough. We measure God by how we think He should deliver upon the circumstances of our lives.
TV and big tent preachers have long promised that "If you have enough faith you can have whatever you want,"....healings, money, power...name your prize. There are big name, honey tongued "pastors" selling out venues and book stores with such glitzy assurances. Always with the caveat of "If you have enough faith"...and often including "if you give enough to me to show your faith,".....wolves preying on desperate sheep. They know there are so many out there listening or watching, who are scared, depressed, trying to figure out where to turn....and they prey upon that need, and those fears, in order to become rich. They have turned God's people into merchandise to exploit and line their coffers with.
"But there also arose false prophets among the people, as among you also there will be false teachers, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, denying even the Master who bought them, bringing on themselves swift destruction. Many will follow their immoral ways, and as a result, the way of the truth will be maligned. In covetousness they will exploit you [KJV- make merchandise of you] with deceptive words: whose sentence now from of old doesn't linger, and their destruction will not slumber". 2 Peter 2:1-3"
God is not a commodity whose love can be bought, or whose power can be summoned because a prosperity preacher claims it. God is neither a Santa Claus, nor genie, nor happy butler, but a holy and powerful God. He gives to us in His wisdom and out of His love, but not because we can command, bribe or bully Him to get our way.
There's another big camp in Western Christianity that teaches that when you don't get what you want, it is because God doesn't love you, and you're too sinful. That you don't deserve God's favor and blessings, for you are tainted and foul. Such camps say that you must prove to the pastor, the elders, that you are living up to God's standards, and unless you please them, you'll never please God. That you will remain unloved until you have that particular church's approval. They have forgotten nothing can separate us from the love of God through Christ.
" No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:37-39
The God who loves you enough to have come down and died for you will not withhold His love from you because a toxic church says you aren't worthy. He found you worth dying for, and their faulty, controlling opinions simply do not matter.
So if neither the prosperity teachers, nor the toxic controlling churches are correct...then why don't we get what we request, you say? What is the purpose of prayer? To make us grovel, to make us beg?
John Wesley said in part, "That is, prayer makes us more aware of what we need. And prayer helps us to know what is worthy of our desires: “nothing being fit to have a place in our desires which is not fit to have a place in our prayers.” That is, if you feel uncomfortable praying for something, then perhaps the desire itself is something to look into."
God already knows our needs. Indeed, Jesus tells us, " ...your Father knows what you need before you ask.” (Matthew 6:8) So prayer must be for something other than just our needs. And God will provide what He knows is best for us
"If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father who is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him?" (Matthew 7:11)
But God gives us what is necessary for our good, not only in this short span, but in the eternal spectrum. One of my favorite verses is Romans 8:28..."And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to His purpose." But what is necessary in order to understand the full scope of that verse and promise is the next verse...which continues, "For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters." God promises to use everything to the good for those who love Him, so that they may be made into, conformed to, the image of His perfect Son, Jesus. And as Christ suffered, so we might suffer. And as Christ died for God's will, so might we. For that is in our eternal good, even if it means short term suffering and pain.
Prayer is, in part, to connect us to God. (It is also to lift up to God those in need of prayer, putting them before ourselves, in love and offering.) Prayer helps to help keep our focus upon God, to help align our wills with *His*...not His with ours. Prayer helps us to realize that this life is but the first step in our long relationship with God; and that whatever He gives us, whatever He allows us, is for our good now...and for the long term.
Sometimes, no matter how hard we pray for something we think we need or desperately want, God says no. Because it isn't what we need in the process of making us more like Christ; more like God's child.
That doesn't mean God doesn't love us; He does this precisely because He DOES love us. With a deep, wild, unfathomable love. He loves us so much that He goes to whatever length is necessary (be it the death of His Son, the turning upside down of our lives, the harrowing and scraping and purifying) to secure us, to mold us, to perfect us. He wants us, but He wants us not only as we are, but for what we will be when He is done with us; glorious children who reflect His light and love.
And He will not stop until He has done it.
"Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:" Philippians 1:6
Sometimes the answer to prayer is "no." Even if the "no" means suffering will come, or want, or need, or death. Because God isn't as worried about our short term happiness as He is with our eternal destiny; if the "no" is necessary to bring us closer to Him, then "no" it will be.
We sell God too cheaply in this culture. We've made Him into either a genie or angry tyrant, when He is neither. What He is is holy and all knowing, powerful and just, merciful and loving. He demands the all of us, every last bit, stripping us down to nothing, so that He can give us back something even more wonderful; our true and glorious selves. He takes our feeble pleasures away from us so He can give us true wonders and delights. He calls us to lay aside our willfulness and selfishness so that we may take a hold of all He has to give us.
He calls us to prayer not so we can be a spoiled child telling a servant all of what we want, but so that we may be a beloved child sitting with an adored parent, forging an eternal relationship. So that we might confide and grow in wisdom, and become all the more who He has fashioned us to be. We are meant to be more than what we are right now; we are meant to be sons and daughters of a holy King, and about His business, doing Kingdom work. Our prayers and aspirations should reflect that.
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