It is not the first time that we heard someone saying: “What’s the use of praying? I pray and it seems that I am never granted what I pray for. It seems that God does not listen to my prayers… that God does not care about me… that no door ever get opened for me.” Perhaps this is also our experience.
All of us have prayed and prayed, all of us have expected to receive, all of us feel that there were moments when we were let down by our God. We expected a “yes” and we got a “no”.
Do you remember as kids when we asked for something we always expected to be given what we asked for and how many tantrums we went in when we were denied what we wanted?
Today, we might realize that our parents were justified not to give us whatever we asked for. We might have asked for things that might have caused us harm, like asking for a knife or a scissors to play with, and they were right not to give them to us. We might have asked things which were beyond the family means and they were right in not granting them. We might have asked to go places or to do things which would have put us in harm’s way either physically or spiritually or both, and they were more than justified to say no. And we will do the same with our children.
It is the same with God. Like the loving Father that He is, He will not grant us all that we ask for if it does not fit in his scheme of things for us. And He does not does this arbitrarily or because He could care less about us. He does this because He loves us and no one loves us as much as He does. Not even we can love ourselves more than He loves us.
But in our scheme of things, things look differently. We think that we know exactly what we need and what we want. We think that we can control our future like no one else. We think that our plan for our life is the best plan and woe to him who dares to tell us otherwise or who thinks of giving it a tweak or two. We know best! We know it all! How dare you all?
But we are only seeing a small part of the whole picture. We cannot foresee what’s going to happen tomorrow or within an hour let alone a week or month from now . We do not know it all. We do not know what is really the best for us.
We might have asked God for a favour and we did not get it. Do you know why? Because it was not the best for us.
We might have missed a thing or two because something beyond our control happened and we blamed God for it. Do you know why that happened? Because otherwise we would have missed something better.
Today, I would like to propose to all of us, me included, this short prayer which someone posted on facebook. When I read it and reflected on my life, I realized how true it is and how thankful I should be to God. Here it is:
God, thank you for the closed doors.
Thank you for not allowing me to settle for second best.
God, every time I thought I was being rejected from something good, you were re-directing me to something better.
God, I pray you will give me peace when frustration creeps in. I pray you will give me strength to press on when I am told “no”.
God. I thank you for teaching me that “no” is just a step to a bigger and better “YES”. Amen.
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All of us have prayed and prayed, all of us have expected to receive, all of us feel that there were moments when we were let down by our God. We expected a “yes” and we got a “no”.
Do you remember as kids when we asked for something we always expected to be given what we asked for and how many tantrums we went in when we were denied what we wanted?
Today, we might realize that our parents were justified not to give us whatever we asked for. We might have asked for things that might have caused us harm, like asking for a knife or a scissors to play with, and they were right not to give them to us. We might have asked things which were beyond the family means and they were right in not granting them. We might have asked to go places or to do things which would have put us in harm’s way either physically or spiritually or both, and they were more than justified to say no. And we will do the same with our children.
It is the same with God. Like the loving Father that He is, He will not grant us all that we ask for if it does not fit in his scheme of things for us. And He does not does this arbitrarily or because He could care less about us. He does this because He loves us and no one loves us as much as He does. Not even we can love ourselves more than He loves us.
But in our scheme of things, things look differently. We think that we know exactly what we need and what we want. We think that we can control our future like no one else. We think that our plan for our life is the best plan and woe to him who dares to tell us otherwise or who thinks of giving it a tweak or two. We know best! We know it all! How dare you all?
But we are only seeing a small part of the whole picture. We cannot foresee what’s going to happen tomorrow or within an hour let alone a week or month from now . We do not know it all. We do not know what is really the best for us.
We might have asked God for a favour and we did not get it. Do you know why? Because it was not the best for us.
We might have missed a thing or two because something beyond our control happened and we blamed God for it. Do you know why that happened? Because otherwise we would have missed something better.
Today, I would like to propose to all of us, me included, this short prayer which someone posted on facebook. When I read it and reflected on my life, I realized how true it is and how thankful I should be to God. Here it is:
God, thank you for the closed doors.
Thank you for not allowing me to settle for second best.
God, every time I thought I was being rejected from something good, you were re-directing me to something better.
God, I pray you will give me peace when frustration creeps in. I pray you will give me strength to press on when I am told “no”.
God. I thank you for teaching me that “no” is just a step to a bigger and better “YES”. Amen.
If you would like to stay informed about new feeds, please subscribe by entering your email address in the box on the right and click on Subscribe.
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