He Already Answered
September 10, 2007
What the Church says: God answers prayers. In fact, where two or more come together in agreement by prayer, He listens and answers. God provides. In fact, while you are not to test the Lord your God, you can test him in your tithes: that if you give your 10%, He will increase it 30-60-100 fold. You hear that every time the offering plate is about to be passed; after all, it’s true. Moreover, God would not let you go without; he clothes the naked and feeds the hungry. The church says, God listens. And God answers prayer.
God’s answer does not necessarily have to be an affirmative one either; He can say no. It may not be the answer you want or like, but it is an answer.
What they say: Answers?? When?? How?? If God answers prayers, why are there still children dying, hunger, and war? What happened to that raise at work I prayed so hard for? Why did my only child die of cancer when she was only 12? How did God answer me when I am left with more questions than I started with? I asked for a cure. I asked for a better job. I asked for a new home. I asked for my rapist to be brought to justice.
God does not answer prayers; I can’t even be sure he listens. How can no be an answer to someone asking for their mother, spouse, or child to be spared from pain and even death? How can this God of love who listens to prayers and loves his children answer no? God doesn’t answer no. He just doesn’t answer at all.
What I say: Ever read the books of Job, Isaiah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Haggai, Malachi, Matthew, Romans…the Bible? Modern man has not proposed any questions that God hasn’t already heard or even answered before. In Job He really puts the tester to the test, in Isaiah He tells you just how much He has given you and up for you, in Nahum He tells you that the guilty will be punished, and in Habakkuk onward, He tells you about the wealth He can and will bestow on you if you follow and love Him. He promises to take care of you.
But yet nowhere in the Good Book does God say anything about being a genie from a lamp who will grant you unlimited wishes til your heart’s content. You asked for a raise so God gave you a new job opportunity. You asked for your child to be spared from pain so He took her to be with Him. You asked for your mother to live and she now has life eternal.
Did you ever ask someone a question only to have another one thrown at you? Annoying as it was, did you get the message? Just because the answer is not the one we wanted, does not mean it was necessarily the wrong one. God did say that you could test him in your tithes, but he does not say that it’s the next Wall Street: invest in me as my stock will always increase in value for you to cash out for a nice sum soon. Malachi tells us that God was trying to bring the descendants of Jacob back to Him; that God would show them the truths He already promised his children and that if they followed the ways He set forth, He would do the same for them. Pastors and religious leaders tend to embellish the riches that God promises. God doesn’t command us to tithe so that He may pay dividends on those tithes to support you. He asks us to tithe so He can keep you blessed.
Who hasn’t seen the email about the little boy wanting a dog from a farmer and chooses the runt with a gimp leg because he, having problems with his legs himself, can relate to the young pup? It is meant to stir the emotions of the heart as most cannot resist the innocence of a child, but it also shows that life is all about perspectives/relativity: what is disregarded by one, may be golden to another. A millionaire can ask God for a raise and find a lousy $100 bill in the gutter and scoff, but let a homeless family of four find that same $100 bill and they are in heaven. While not every case has a definitive upside, why can’t we trust the all-knowing favor of God?
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