Dear Jesus, just do what I want.

Answered prayer can be a tricky situation.

On the one hand, we’ve prayed and asked God to intervene – perhaps with a physical healing, or a job opportunity, or a financial rescue – and the situation has changed in the way we prayed that God would resolve it.  “God came through” is what we often say.  And we should absolutely continue to bring our requests for help to God.  He invites us to do so (Philippians 4:6), and He’s happy to say yes to us (Matthew 7:7-11).

But what if He says “no”?

How do we respond to not getting the “good thing” we want?  What should we do when God doesn’t immediately bless our plans? 

Early on in Jesus’ ministry, there were those who had specific requests for Him, but Jesus didn’t go along with their plans.  While preaching and ministering in the town of Capernaum, which is in the northern region of Galilee, Jesus performed two healing miracles.  When word got out about the miracles, the whole town showed up for more:

Luke 4:40-42
When the sun was setting, all those who had anyone sick with various diseases brought them to Him.  As He laid His hands on each one of them, He healed them.  Also, demons were coming out of many, shouting and saying, “ You are the Son of God!”  But He rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew He was the Messiah.

When it was day, He went out and made His way to a deserted place.  But the crowds were searching for Him.  They came to Him and tried to keep Him from leaving them.

Here’s what the people of Capernaum missed: The miracles weren’t performed just so they could have an easier life.  If that was all there was to Jesus’ ministry, then He could have set up shop in town, and everyone with a broken arm, demon affliction, or even a case of the sniffles could stop in for a quick healing.  He would have been immensely popular (and profitable for the town) had He done so. 

The crowds in Capernaum wanted to keep Jesus in town so they knew where He was and what He was doing at all times.  In case of an emergency, they knew exactly where to go.  They didn’t want to let Jesus go beyond how they have experienced Him to this point.  They wanted to keep Him stashed away for themselves and have Him do His work on their terms.

However, Jesus had a larger purpose for the miracles He was doing:

Luke 4:43-44
But He said to them, “It is necessary for Me to proclaim the good news about the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because I was sent for this purpose.”  And He was preaching in the synagogues of Judea.

Jesus’ miracles authenticated that His message was from God, but the miracles were not the focus of Jesus’ ministry…even if other people wanted them to be.  Jesus had no intention of being their “in-case-of-emergency-break-glass” healer.  Instead, His mission was much, much bigger.  The other towns needed to hear the message that the kingdom of God was at hand, that their Messiah had arrived, that their spiritual condition needed healing even more than their physical diseases did.

It’s easy to scoff at their near-sighted, selfish attempt to control Jesus…but the truth is, we’re just as guilty of doing the same thing.  We struggle when we don’t see God move in our lives like He did before.  We pine away for how close we felt to Jesus in the beginning or at a certain moment when He rescued us…and we’re confused as to why we don’t see Him like that now.  We ask Him…even beg Him…to bring healing to our physical body or our mental illness or our relationships…and we despise the silent “no” that comes in the moment.

We want Jesus to stay in one place and fix all our problems.  But, deep down, we want those things for selfish reasons…mainly that we want life to be easier.

There were lots of blind, broken, demon-possessed, hungry, and hurting people in Judea during Jesus’ time there.  Only a small fraction of them received any sort of healing.  Because healing wasn’t the mission.  Being the Messiah they needed was more important than being the Healer they wanted.

When Jesus firmly told the people of Capernaum that He was leaving, against their wishes, they were left with a choice: Would they shrink back from Jesus because they didn’t get what they wanted, or would they support Him in His larger, kingdom-sized purpose?

The same question hangs in the air for us, too.

Keep Pressing,
Ken

That wasn't the answer he expected

In this series, we’re walking with a prophet that is little-known to most of us modern-day Christians.  Habakkuk lived in the last days of the southern kingdom of Judah, just before the Babylonians invaded and destroyed Jerusalem.  However, where the writings of most other Old Testament prophets were about God’s message to the people, what we find unique about the book of Habakkuk is that the prophet records his conversation with God on behalf of the people.

Last time, we heard Habakkuk confront God about the selfish, even down-right evil, actions his fellow countrymen were committing.  He was struggling to understand why God hadn’t stepped in to address the troubles in Judah.

God did reply – but His response certainly wasn’t the solution Habakkuk was looking for:

Habakkuk 1:6-11
Look!  I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter impetuous nation that marches across the earth’s open spaces to seize territories not its own. 
They are fierce and terrifying; their views of justice and sovereignty stem from themselves. 
Their horses are swifter than leopards and more fierce than wolves of the night. 
Their horsemen charge ahead; their horsemen come from distant lands. 
They fly like eagles, swooping to devour.

All of them come to do violence; their faces are set in determination.
They gather prisoners like sand.
They mock kings, and rulers are a joke to them.
They laugh at every fortress and build siege ramps to capture it.
Then they sweep by like the wind and pass through.
They are wind; their strength is their god.

The Chaldeans are not who Habakkuk was expecting when he petitioned God for a “rescuer” for his people.  In fact, these pagan foreigners are the complete opposite of who Habakkuk expected.

In Habakkuk’s situation, he asked for help…but God told him it’s going to get worse before it gets better.  This was necessary, even though it would be painful.

When looking back in our own lives, we often thank God for “unanswered prayers”, when we asked for blessings that we ultimately did not receive.  We thought the best thing for us would be to get “that job” we had applied for, or we wanted a romantic relationship with a specific person, or even safety when traveling.  Because if God had fulfilled our request and we had received what we wanted in the moment…life would have been so different that the relationships and blessings we have now would not have been experienced.

But sometimes, God’s answer to our requests is more than just a “No”.  Other times, He does allow the car accident, the cancer diagnosis, or other difficult situations to occur.  But if we’re honest, the motivation behind many our prayer requests has more to do with our immediate comfort than with our connectedness with God.

And that’s the bigger picture – both for us and for Habakkuk – going through hard times has the ability to strip away our selfishness and self-centeredness that keeps us from being who God made us to be.

If you’ve learned how to look into your past and thank God for what didn’t happen, the next step in maturity is to be able to thank God in the moment He denies our prayer request.

Keep Pressing,
Ken