Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Do You Believe God.....Part 2

Ok, yesterday I talked about the difference between believing God and believing in God, and today I just want to build upon that point.

Too often we thank God for being good when our prayers are answered the way we think they should, but the truth is that God is good no matter what answer we get, and therein lies one of our biggest problems.

We think that just because we don't get the answer we want, that God has not answered our prayers, when the reality is that God has answered, but not the way we want.

Our problem actually comes down to one of idolatry. We want a God that we can predict, one that makes sense to us all the time, one that will fit neatly in our back pocket and we can whip him out whenever we need him, and then gently fold him back up and slide him back in our pocket when we want to take control of our lives again.

But God doesn't work like that.

I have had to wrestle with this in my life. I came to the conclusion that I believed in God way more than I believed God.

Now, I have come to believe God.

When I pray and feel like my prayers go no further than the ceiling, I believe God hears my prayers.

When people I love refuse the love of Christ, I believe God knows the heartache I feel.

When I have more questions than answers, I believe God knows all.

When tragedy strikes and I am hurt, confused and depressed, I believe God is in control and aware of all things.

What it comes down to is that I believe that God not only hears my prayers, and I believe that God knows my hearache, and I belive that God knows everything, and I believe that God is in control and aware of all things, but even more than that I believe that God is who He says He is.

I believe that God is loving, generous, slow to anger and abounding in love. God is good. All the time. He longs to give us good gifts, even those things that we are afraid to ask. He will not always give us what we want, but will always give us what we need.

I pray that today, you will move from belief in God, to believing God.

Ok, so there's that.
Pastor Dave

2 comments:

Steven Simpson said...

What no debit card Jesus...? Just swipe your worries away...enter your pin and grin...your no fun...

Deena Peterson said...

it's hard to move from believing in Him to just believing Him...
maybe, if we can't make the transition, we're believing in the wrong god??

Pray for me...I have some learnin' to do in this area of life...