"You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures." (NIV)
"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!" (Matthew 7:7-11 NKJV).
If there is a conundrum within Christian beliefs, this one is probably the most obvious. The Lord Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, teaches that if you keep asking God, if you keep seeking, if you keep knocking, you will receive. And yet, there are sincere Christians of long-standing faith that pray, often over long periods of time, for something and they don’t receive it. And, for some, the result is that they begin to doubt God; they become angry that their petitions haven’t been answered. To them it seems that God has promised but not fulfilled His promise. Their world is turned upside down because they believe their faith has been in vain.
Wherein lies the problem? Does it lie with God or His Word? Does it lie with our faith? I believe that the problem lies in perspective. You see, God sees our lives (and the lives of all people) from a far different perspective than we do. We see from the temporary. He sees from the everlasting. We see from the circumstances of this earth. He sees from eternity. The views are totally different.
*There was a wonderful Christian family. The father and mother were both pastors and not only shepherded their church, but many other churches and many missions internationally. Among their own children was a young man who was passionate for the Lord. This young man spent many years preparing to become a medical missionary to Africa. He trained for twelve years to become a doctor and a surgeon, marrying a lovely young nurse in the process. During their training they also became parents. After this long preparation period, they left for Dakar, Africa and then eventually went to a remote region of Mali where there was no other medical care within a radius of 500 miles. They were in Africa for about two years when the young man was in a terrible accident, dying a few days later. The parents were devastated. So many years of training. So many donation dollars gathered to build the new medical clinic, for what?
For what? When news of this young doctor’s death was shared, so many young people dedicated themselves to the mission field in Africa (including a number of my own parents’ friends) that the total number of missionaries who went was lost in trying to keep the accounting. One man gone, but literally hundreds rose up in his place. One man who could help hundreds, perhaps thousands, was gone. But in his place went hundreds who would end up helping hundreds of thousands of needy people. This is the view from eternity. The view from the temporary said that this man’s death was the waste of years of training, thousands of dollars in donations. But God knew better! In His plan, this young man was taken to heaven to see the face of His Savior while a host of missionaries flooded the remote areas of Africa, building hospitals, churches, schools, and clinics for the waiting people there.
James tells us that when we ask, if we don’t receive, the reason we don’t receive is because we ask with wrong motives. The NKJV says that we ask "amiss," that is, to ask in a mistaken or faulty way. James explains that this "faulty way" is due to the influence of our own lusts, our own emotions. We ask what we ask because we want to please ourselves; we want to make ourselves happy. We aren’t asking for God’s will or His way. We look at our circumstances, make our own conclusions, and then present to God our solution to our current predicament. And, of course, that solution is formulated so that we will end up happy. When God refuses to be bent to our will, we call foul, claiming that He has faulted on His promises.
The question is, can God actually default on His promises? Is that even possible? For if He can, then our prayers are solid and He is at fault. But if He cannot default, then the problem lies within us, within our own motives when we pray.
Who is God? Who do we truly believe Him to be? When we pray, our expectation of outcome is based on whatever this premise is. If we believe God to be trustworthy, then we will trust Him, regardless of whether or not the outcome suits our preconceived ideas of what should happen.
In the book of Daniel, an account is given of three young men who trusted God in the manner we should also trust Him. Their names were Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They served in the king’s court in Babylon as slaves and advisors to the king. At one point, the king decided to build a huge statue of himself and required everyone in the kingdom to bow down and worship the statue. If a person refused, they were to be thrown into a fiery furnace and killed.
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, believing in the one true God, refused. After they were tied up and being readied to be thrown into the furnace, the king questioned them about their refusal. This was their answer:
"Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him, ‘King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.’" (Daniel 3:16-18 NIV).
Notice that while they believed that God was fully capable of saving them, even if He didn’t, they would continue to trust Him and to worship Him. They were fully content to live out their lives exactly as God had already planned whether in life or death, trusting that God’s will for their lives was perfect in every detail.
God’s view of our lives and His perfect will can often be far different from ours. The apostle Paul fully understood that Christians shouldn’t fear the future, even if death looms at the door. "For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live on in the flesh, this will mean fruit from my labor; yet what I shall choose I cannot tell. For I am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better." (Philippians 1:21-23 NKJV).
For the Christian, there should be two goals: To live this life in whatever ministry we are called to and then to go, as quickly as possible, to heaven to be with the Lord Jesus Christ. This life we live isn’t about what we can do to make ourselves happy but is instead about what we can do to minister to others. And even if, as in the case of the young doctor, we believe that our lives can be effective in ministry, God may have other plans because the view from eternity is far different than the view from this life. Out of the ashes of death, God is fully able to raise up even an greater ministry, even greater numbers of servants for the gospel.
The question becomes, do we trust Him? Do we truly trust Him? If we do, then nothing that comes our way is beyond His plan. If we truly trust Him, then every circumstance, regardless of the outcome on this earth, falls within the promise of Romans 8:28: "All things work together for good to those who love Him, to those who are called according to His purpose."
*This story is recounted in Helen Correll’s book, Lady Preacher, copyright 1995 and printed by Rhymeo Ink, available on Amazon.
© 2015 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.
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