TITLE: If Only My Mom or Someone Had Told Me? #12 (c) By gene hudgens 09/03/07 |
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Each of us remembers that we began wanting “things” and we asked Mom or Dad or Auntie if we could have them. When we accompanied Mom shopping we likely asked, “Mom, can I have this”? We likely asked “can I have”? a dozen or more times. Some times we got it and most of the time we didn’t, but we kept asking.
When we got older Mom and Dad prayed with us and we began to learn to repeat little prayers and later we began to pray on our own. Its likely that in our prayers we often asked, “Jesus, may I have this or may I have that”. There was nothing wrong with asking, but what we got (without realizing it at that time) was more important than the “things” we asked for. We learned to talk with God and Jesus.
As we get older we often ask God for guidance in handling little problems. There are times when we all feel disappointment or anger, because we feel, at that moment, that God doesn’t listen or care. Believe me that God always listens and cares. God gave us a brain and He works his miracles through our brain…in other words He wants us to study and think out the causes of our problems and work to solve our own problems…with His guidance.
Jesus said, “Whatsoever things ye ask for when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them”. Its very important that we all feel and show gratitude. Try to thank God for allowing us to mentally see things we want as if they are actually around us all of the time. We need to learn to use of them in imagination just as we will use them when they are our tangible possessions.
We do not need to repeatedly pray for things we want. Its not necessary to tell God about it every day. “Use not vain repetitions as the heathen do,” Jesus said to his pupils, “for your Father knoweth the ye have need of these things before ye ask Him.”
Our part is to intelligently formulate our desire for the things which make for a larger life, and to get these desires arranged into a coherent whole; and then to impress our Whole Desire upon God our Creator. It is He who has the power and the will to bring us what we want.
We can never impress God by repeating strings of words. We can impress God by holding on to our vision with unshakable “purpose” to attain it, and with steadfast “faith” that we will attain…through the help of God.
The answer to our prayers is not according to our faith while we are talking, but according to our faith as we work. We impress God with the sincerity of our prayers.
We can not impress God by having a special Sabbath day set apart to tell Him what we want, and then forgetting Him during the rest of the week. We can not impress God by having special hours to go into our closet and pray, if we then dismiss the matter from our mind until the hour of prayer comes again.
Our oral prayers are OK, and has its effect, especially on us, as it clarifies our vision and strengthens our faith. However, it is not our oral prayers that get us what we want. We do not need a “sweet hour of prayer”, but we do need to “pray without ceasing”. Then we need to “believe” that our prayers are answered.
God sees everything and knows everything. We must always be careful to never apply our ‘will’ on other men and women, in order to get what we want or to get them to do what we want them to do. Remember that it is equally wrong to coerce people by mental power as it is to coerce them by physical power; this reduces them to slavery. We have no right to use our will power on another person, even “for his own good”, for only God knows what is good for him. It is always He, not we, that is the judge. To coerce another human is like trying to coerce God. This will be foolish, useless, and irreverent.
God wants us to pray to Him, but he demands that we be kind to all others and always act like good Christians.
© Gene Hudgens http://www.genehudgens.com
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