From Marc Adkins on MeWe:
That's very, very true. I've learned the hard way that if I ask God to do something, more often than not the answer comes, "Well, get busy!" He has hands and feet and muscles on this earth; also a mind, eyes, ears and a voice. All of them are temporarily ours, borrowed from Him until we have to return the gift. He's going to use them, too; and if we don't let Him, we shouldn't be surprised when our prayers are answered a lot more slowly, and a lot less frequently, than we might wish. Sure, He adds grace to the mix, but it all begins with our willingness to get our hands dirty and do what He asks us to do.
It can also take long-term hard work and dedication. Old African proverb:
Q - "How do you eat an elephant?"
A - "Mouthful by mouthful!"
Peter
Once upon a time, I was a peer counselor in a group of parents of drug addicts.
ReplyDeleteWe needed discussion topics to kick off our group sessions. Once I chose some words of wisdom from some anonymous rabbi.
"God answers all prayers. Oftentimes, the answer is 'No'."
Not "I'm not going to help you", but "I'm not going to do it for you."
Definitely true!
ReplyDeleteAll true.
ReplyDelete"God answers all prayers. Oftentimes, the answer is 'No'."
ReplyDeleteNot "I'm not going to help you", but "I'm not going to do it for you."
Where this fails is when we ask God to do things we are incapable of doing ourselves- like asking Him to heal us for example At some point we have to accept that it just isn't His will; but also to trust that He has good reasons not to. And we have to fore ourselves to remember that he doe not afflict without a good reason.- easy to say, very difficult to do.
I speak from personal experience.