A Willing God

"And our level of trust does not stop Him from speaking."

THERE IS a point in prayer where your head says one thing and your heart another. Many take the questions of their head and remove God’s willingness to answer. But God knows your heart, every fraction, all your motives and intents. He is never confused by us. “Well, maybe they trust me.” No. He knows. And our level of trust does not stop Him from speaking. This has been misunderstood as well. But in the gospels, many did not fully trust this Man who spoke such great things, such mysteries, yet Jesus healed them. In fact, He healed entire multitudes (Matthew 12:15; Luke 6:19). The only process to prayer is to ask and know He hears. We talk ourself out of that.

To ask for something, healing, for example, and then mutter continuously of how much sicker you are, does stop the answer. What’s in the heart comes out in your words (Luke 6:45). To ask for something, unsure of it, admitting your doubt, to read the promise of an answer in God’s Word, changes the thinking from doubt to assurance.

And then there is MY FAITH for your answer …

Four friends brought their friend to Jesus, willing to even tear apart the roof of the home He had entered, and Jesus saw THEIR FAITH (Mark 2:5). They trusted Him more than the sick man did.

Too many have ministered to the sick and not used THEIR FAITH, not increased their faith to the level God is desiring. You should not lay hands on the sick, or pray for the sick in any manner, and lack trust in God’s willingness to answer. That’s what it comes down to. Do you believe He will heal them or not? Do you believe He answers your prayers?

We get caught up in time limits, too. The sick one, hearing of the healing of another, becomes frustrated, most of the time, by where they stand in comparison. Our healing should never be spoken in any manner that discourages others. This goes for marriage and relationship healing, sicknesses and illnesses, financial healings. The man who needs $100 to pay His light bill does not want to hear of the $1,000 you received to pay off your car. LOVE ONE ANOTHER includes WHAT we say and HOW we say it.

“The words that I have spoken did not come from me myself. They came from the Father, who sent me. He told me what to say. And he told me how to say it.” (John 12:49, EasyEnglish)

It means believing our words when we speak them, and our words being the love of God because they are from the Spirit of God. We spend a great deal of energy doing what we want to do and not what God desires. We enjoy it, it is familiar to us, so we think it’s God speaking. He’s spoken to us before, and so we know we’ll recognize it. But God’s Voice is varied. He is an ocean of thousands of waves, He is thundering and lightning on the mountain, or the softest whisper (Ezekiel 43:2; Exodus 19:16; 1 Kings 19:11-12). These are visual examples spoken of in the Word. What I mean by it is, we must not refuse to see Him.

God in Genesis is God in Exodus, but He doesn’t read the same. God of Exodus is God in Isaiah and the prophets. There, we hear Him and picture Him as cruel. He is the last, last, last One to ever be cruel. God of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, is the God of Acts who spoke to the apostle Paul (then Saul) on the way to Damascus. And God of Revelation, Jesus framed by the glory of God is the same as Jesus, Son of Man, who hung on the cross. But His appearance has changed.

We like a rut. The deeper the rut, the safer it seems. This is me every time. I want A to go directly to B in a straight line, every single day of my life. I want neither lows or highs, just sameness. What I’ve experienced, though, is more of a Ferris wheel tied to a roller coaster aboard a cruise ship that’s sailing over the Andes Mountains. I have let go of what I want, and it hurts every single time. But my emotions only tell me how human I am. They are how I would react, and I have reacted. God’s timing, though, is perfect, and one thing I want you to get out of this is a question I heard a minister explain so very well: “Why would He bring us this far to bring us this far?”

God is never going to start you on a journey (“prospereth”, 3 John 1:2) down the path of righteousness, which is where blessings are found, and leave you in the middle of nowhere, staring at a blank brick wall. There is no “end of trail” sign and nowhere to go next. When we get this Truth fixed in our big, fat heads, we will see the answer every, single time and have patience for it.

Jesus has removed the fear of death, so cancel that completely. If you feel it, God knows. It does not mean He won’t answer. He did not stop listening to your heartbeat. If you struggle with it, God is not backing away. He is right where He’s been, FOR you and WITH you. If the doctor, the circumstances, or negative voices in your ear all chime in and speak it, don’t let your reaction to them destroy your trust in God. The Israelites had heard for hundreds of years, for generations, God’s promise to Abraham of the Promised Land. But when they were standing at the edge of it, though it was exactly what God had told them, a good land, a fruitful land, they magnified the problem and saw resistance instead (Numbers 13:27-28).

We see what’s coming against us, what we’re fighting against, and let go of God’s rest. We are not in a war. Jesus won the war and is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We are trusting God entirely. He is the complete answer and all our hope. The human mind wants to figure things out, to do something, to know the complete process, all the dates and times involved. All we need to know is the Voice of God. In the Word. What is He speaking? In our worship. We must make Him our priority over anything else. In our listening. We hear many things from all directions, some not God at all, we must lay these aside without anger and hatred and keep going forward.

For the promise about the valley of the shadow of death is that the Shepherd is with us, so we do not fear. He is taking us THROUGH it, in one side and out the other (Psalm 23:4). Rested, His goodness and mercy around us on every side. See the size of God and He will minimize the problem in your eyes. That’s His heart for you. For me, on one hand, I knew what medicine said, and there was no cure. On the other, though, was Jesus.

Problem solved.

“There is nothing love cannot face; there is no limit to its faith, its hope, and its endurance.” (1 Corinthians 13:7, New English Bible)


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com