Ask the Pastor

This week’s question is not only a great question but it’s something that all of us have asked at least once in our lives.

Why do we pray if God already has a plan for us and everything will happen according to His will? My husband has been sick for years, and we constantly pray for him to no avail, so my daughter feels there is no point in praying.

We know that God does have a plan for our lives based on what we read in Jeremiah 29:11, but what happens when our plans and God’s plans are not the same?

In Genesis Chapter 18 God is ready to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because of the wickedness of those two cities. Abraham steps before the Lord in verses 16-33 and ask God if he would change his mind if he finds 50 righteous people in the cities. God does say that he will withhold his judgment for the sake of 50 righteous. Then Abraham begins to bargain with God talking Him down from 50 righteous people to 10.

So we know from this example that we call on God and petition Him with our own desires and He will listen to us. This is reinforced in the New Testament when Jesus told us to ask and it will be given to us (Matthew 7:7).

So why do people get sick and things happen that we don’t like? I have always taught that God answers prayer in one of three ways; yes, no, and grow.

Yes is the answer that we all like to receive from God because it means that He has heard our request and out of His love for us grants that request just the way we asked.

The other two are a little tougher to swallow because it’s not really the answer we were hoping for. We have to remember that God is a just God and His purposes are greater than ours. That is why it requires faith to grow in a relationship with Him. He tells us no because it is not according to His purpose and plan that is designed to ultimately benefit us even though we may not see it at the time of our request and His response.

Sometimes God tells us no because we have put the object of our request ahead of Him in our lives. Remember God is just and he desires our true devotion. Basically we are asking Him to give us something that is more important than He is.

God will also delay His answer sometimes because we need to grow in our faith and relationship with Him. Perhaps we don’t see what circumstances the granting or our request would bring up in our life and He knows there is a spiritual danger ahead and we need to grow a little in order to overcome what comes next.

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