Thursday, October 30, 2008

Let Your Requests be Made Known...

Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.
Psalm 37:4

I don't know about you, but it seems like every time the "whats your favorite verse?" question gets brought up, 1 out of every 7 Christians lists this as their favorite verse. I just have to wonder if they are reading the same verse I am... or if all they see is, "as long as I love the Lord, He will have favor on me and give me what I want". The problem is, I don't think that's what the scripture is saying at all, in fact, I think it's saying quite the opposite. If your delight is in the Lord, then your desire will be for Him and to serve Him and follow His will for your life. The desires of your flesh will be crucified in order for His desires to take priority.

You see, I want my desires to be in line with His, and more than anything I want to live according to His word and His will for my life... yet there are always desires hidden beneath the surface that crave the things of this world. Things that are not necessarily "bad", but things that are not promised by Gods word. For me, this has manifested itself as a couple of things...my desire for friends here at school, and my dream of one day being a mother. Now don't get me wrong, I don't think either of these things are condemned by Gods word (or are "bad" in and of themselves), but I know that I have not been promised either. They seem to fall in this "gray area" of desires. I can say confidently that I would rather live in Gods will than have either of these things, but I desire them nonetheless.

Here is where my dilemma begins... what I don't understand is why we need to pray that He will grant us the desires of our hearts if we make His desires our own? I am probably just missing something, but if we are truly followers of Christ then His will should be our own, right? And maybe I am wrong again, but I do not feel like I have to ask God to complete His will. He is God Almighty and I have faith that His will is going to be completed with or without my prayer. However, I try to be obedient and present my requests unto Him, knowing that He hears them, and hoping that they are in line with His will. I just don't know what to do with these "gray area" desires. I know the Lord knows my heart, and since these wants are not a necessity or even a priority, I don't feel like I should bring them before Him. Am I wrong? If my primary desire is for His will to be completed in me, what do I do with these secondary desires? I feel selfish even bringing such petty things before His throne. I wish I could purge myself of these things, but they seem to stick with me. Simply put, He has created me with a passion for people and a love for babies. I know that He is supreme in my life and is completely sufficient, so should I even bother asking for these other things? When Paul says "let your requests be made known" (Philipians 4:6) does that only include the requests that line up with His promises and truth?

I don't know if any of this makes sense, I just wanted to see if anyone had some insight or words of wisdom for me...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't know if I have insight or words of wisdom, but I can tell you what I think :-). My dad will have a better answer.

I'll preface it by saying that I don't believe anything surprises God, I don't believe in conflicting wills within God, and I don't believe that we can thwart his will. And besides that, I believe that God's will is always done, no matter what.

Now that that's out of the way, people like me come to the problem of prayer. It's the same type of problem that Calvinists (or flaky Sovereigntists like my dad) have with evangelism. If God knows the result, if he predestined them, then what does it matter if I tell them about Jesus or not? The short answer is this: you do things because God says to do them. We evangelize because God says so, and we are to pray, simply because God says so.

A longer answer, and a bit more satisfying to me is this: prayer is another part of crucifying the old self and being baptized in fire. It's another part of that shedding of the self. Taking ourselves out of everything, even those earthly desires. The more we do it, the less it matters. My dad used to say that when he had trouble loving other people, he learned that if he made a habit of praying for them, before he knew it, he didn't mind being around them, wasn't bothered by them and actually kind of liked them. Or as the great (soon to be saint) John Henry Newman said, "Before belief comes action." One thing I had to get over before I could make any progress with Christianity was the fact that it does take work. Most of the time, I still have to force myself to pray for things. But the discipline itself has made my faith stronger. There are days now where I don't even think about God not being real, when it used to be something I wrestled with by the hour. It's not that the act of praying is changing the heart of God or the will of God, but instead the throwing off of the self that makes it worth doing.

You are to bring what you have (be it worries, sins, desires, or whatever) before the throne and leave them there. Holding onto it because you think it's petty is still holding on, and ultimately, it's still indulgent. And that's just a part of being human.

I hope that helps a bit, and please clarify if there are things you don't understand or that you think I misunderstood.

On a side note, you gave a great little soapbox sermon against the prosperity gospel in the first part of the post. Right on.

Danielle said...

You are to bring what you have (be it worries, sins, desires, or whatever) before the throne and leave them there. Holding onto it because you think it's petty is still holding on, and ultimately, it's still indulgent

Nicely put. I hadn't really thought of it that way before. I guess in a way I always viewed these desires as sinful because they are not necessarily of God. I guess what I should have asked was if I should bring these desires before Him and hope that they coincide with His will, or should I repent of them because His will for me is far greater?

Anonymous said...

For some reason, my last comment isn't showing, which is disappointing, because I spent a good 5 minutes on it. Anyways, if the previous one shows up, feel free to delete this one.

I would start with these questions. Is desire wrong? Is it wrong to pray for the dying because you desire that they live? Was Christ wrong to pray the way he did in Gethsemane?

Someone once told me that sin is whatever comes in between us and Christ, and I think that's a good way to look at it. The American Church has this nasty habit of taking the words of Christ as figurative or hyperbolic when he says things like, "To follow me, you must first give all your things to the poor" or "You must hate your mother and your father" but I don't think he meant them that way. He was talking to specific people, and for some people, that is the cost of discipleship. For some, it's requires giving up life itself.

It isn't wrong to pray for our own well being or the well being of those closest to us, but I think the question we have to ask is this: if all my rewards are taken from me, if everything I desire or love is ripped away, can I in that moment of the most immeasurable pain still say, "Yes, God is good. Christ is still all-sufficient." And to look at it another way, when all is well and everything is working out the way we want it to, can we still say "Christ is all-sufficient." Your post reminded me of this Derek Webb song called "I Repent" where he repents of everything good in his life, including his wife and his kids.

I don't think it's wrong to hope for things or to desire them. It isn't wrong to pray for health, or to pray for the means to support your family or even to pray for blessings. It isn't wrong to pray for the future. But you have to ask the tough question of, "What if it doesn't work out this way?" If you aren't willing to throw those desires off for the sake of Christ, that's when it becomes sin.

Christ prayed that he wouldn't have to die in Gethsemane, and I believe that he meant it with all his heart. I don't believe that he wanted to die, at least not in that moment. But at the end of the prayer, he said, "Not my will, but thine be done." And I think that that's ultimately the prayer we have to pray, and it also happens to be the prayer we hate praying.

The cost of discipleship is different for everyone. Some people live their lives without a glitch, being blessed beyond measure and losing nothing. Some lose everything, even their lives. And who is better? If God blesses you by fulfilling all your desires, then you must let Christ be as all-sufficient as when he takes away everything and you can do nothing but rely on him.

And to repeat a quote I've used a thousand times, "Only he who draws the knife gets Isaac." Only those who are willing to put everything on the altar can gain the kingdom. As scary as that sounds, it's a beautiful thought.

Danielle said...

Thanks Andrew, you always seem to organize my thoughts for me :)