Who am I: My relationship with God through prayer (part 4)

 

When I don’t obey Him and am not faithful and things just don’t go well and I nevertheless expect Him to bail me out because after all that is what He says He does when I am in trouble, He won’t. And I am mystified. Why? Because I have put my God in a box that He has neither asked to be placed in nor wants to be in.  He is not my errand boy, and that is the hardest thing for me to understand. He won’t because He knows I am not serious (Deut 1:45). If I were seriously interested in God as God, I would be more interested in enjoying life as His daughter instead of seeing what the latest scrap is He can get me out of and running to Him only then. That doesn’t mean that when I am obedient to Him, He answers me right away. There are numerous examples where the faithful must wait (Ps 22:1,2; Ps 40:1; Ps 80:4; Ps 88:14; Hab 1:2) and it may seem as if God is not around. But for every storm and flood, God promises a rainbow that says I will not perish from being overwhelmed. While it may seem so, I have not really made Him angry. If I grumble, He may in actuality give me what I want because I asked for it. The old saying is, “Be careful not to ask for what you want...You may get it”. I may be in for a big surprise, thinking I need that which I ask for, and in reality God, knowing better, lets nature take its course and allows me to become imprisoned by gaining what I thought I needed, but in fact only wanted. (There is a difference.) When I am in prison, but still faithful to Him, even though asking for the moon got me into prison in the first place, my bonds will eventually be broken (Acts 12:5) and He’ll lead me to safety (Acts 12:15). When I can say in my own private garden of Gethsemane, “Not my will, but yours” (Matt:26:39-47),  something happens to my heart. I am all at once at peace and I can be like the lamb led to slaughter, trusting only God. I realize Who is in control; and when friends fall asleep on me and others betray me, it truly doesn’t matter because God is there. God won’t let harm come to me, even if I am taken off by the soldiers and taken before Pilate. There is purpose in all things. My spirit, my essence will always be intact. This flesh is mortal. This spirit will resurrect when I die. My soul will erupt from a seed to become a seedling and then a flower that bestows its fragrance on everything. And if I hold on to things because I don’t want to hurt someone or be hurt by someone then I deny that resurrection can and will happen. I deny that God does change hearts. I deny that God loves everyone. When I am hurt all I have to do is call 10000 angels to set me free, because by making me Christ, God has empowered me to do so. But the true freedom, the true love of life with Him and the true understanding is that God is looking for those who like Don Quixote in the Man of La Mancha are willing to go to hell for a heavenly cause, whose sacrifice and selflessness extends past themselves. Jesus in Matt 26:48-57 gave himself to humiliation and knew he’d be mocked and beaten because of what he claimed he was. Knowing that on the third day he’d be sitting with His Father once again. Does happen when I sin? It has to. When I sin, and I give myself up, admitting myself powerless to overcome temptations without God, satan will come in and make me feel guilty. But God is above that, will snatch me from satan’s grasp -- but I have to trust He will do that, otherwise I will give in further and further and dig myself deeper into a hole. I have to know in my mind that God is All-powerful (Rom 1:17), that Jesus has come, that there is a resurrection waiting just for me. I have to keep my mind clear by praying to God. Otherwise when I march to hell for that heavenly cause the fires will take my body. The power of may prayer is that God works in all things. Jesus’ cruxifiction in Matt 26,27 was the direct result of Jesus’ prayer of yielding to God’s will. Not only to make it through, but there was peace on His soul throughout the entire process. He said nothing. They beat him and mocked him and he said nothing. Do I have the courage to do that? Do I have the trust in God to do that? Do I allow God to encourage me?