Towards a mature relationship with God - Part 2


TOWARDS A MATURE RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD – PART 2

Mario D’Couto

            “Faith, not feelings, pleases God”, time and time again, we see in the Gospels that most of the miracles of our Lord were based on the faith of the people, examples such as, the woman who was healed of her haemorrhage after suffering for 12 years (Mark 5:25-34) or the healing of the centurion’s servant (Luke 7:1-10) and others, were all based on the people’s faith. In fact, we may just say that the very fact people came to Our Lord asking for help implied that they believed in Him. Now, here’s the catch. Believing or having faith in Our Lord in the hope of expecting something is not some kind of magic where because I believe that ‘this and this’ is going to happen that it was bound to happen as Robert Schuller writes in his book, “WHAT HAPPENS TO GOOD PEOPLE WHEN BAD THINGS HAPPEN”, “God does not give us what we want but He gives us what we need.” I think, the best form of prayer is the prayer our Lord prayed at the Garden of Gethsemane, “Father if Thou art willing, remove this cup from Me; nevertheless, not My will but Thine be done.” (Luke 22:42)

            God is not like some kind of vending machine or a genie nor is He someone who could be ‘bribed’. To explain this point, allow me to use the incident from the life of Jacob in the Old Testament. In Chapter 28 from the book of Genesis, we see Jacob as a young man, spending his first night away from home. He has left his parents’ house, having quarrelled with his father and brother and is travelling on foot to the land of Aram to live with his uncle Laban. Scared and inexperienced, feeling ashamed of what he had done at home and not knowing what lies in store for him at Laban’s house, he prays, “If God, will be with me on this venture, protecting me, giving me food to eat and clothes to wear and if I come back safe to my father’s house, then the Lord will be my only God. I will dedicate an alter to Him and set aside a tenth of all I earn for Him.”

            Over here, we see that Jacob’s prayer is that of a frightened young man who is setting out to do something hard, is not sure he can do it and thinks he can ‘bribe’ God to make things work out for him. He is prepared to make it worth God’s while to protect him and make him prosper and believes in a God whose favour can be won and whose protection can be bought with promises of prayer, charity and exclusive worship. His attitude, much like that of so many people today facing illness or misfortune, is expressed in this way, “Please God make this work out well and I’ll do whatever You want. I’ll stop lying, I’ll go to service regularly. You name it and I’ll do it for You. Just grant me this ….” When we are not personally involved, we can recognize the immaturity of this attitude and the immature picture of God at work here. It is not immoral to think that way, but it is inaccurate. That is not the way the world works. God’s blessings are not for sale.

            As the Biblical account of his life continues, Jacob spends 20 years at Laban’s house. He marries Laban’s 2 daughters and has many children. He works hard and accumulates the beginning of s a small fortune and then the day came for him to take his wives and children, his flocks and herds and go home. He comes to the same river bank where he stood and prayed in chapter 28. Again, he is anxious and afraid. Again, he is heading into an unfamiliar situation. He knows that the next day he will have to confront his brother Esau who had threatened to kill him 20 years before. Once again, Jacob prays. But this time, because he is 20 years older and wiser, he offers a very different prayer than he had did as a boy. In chapter 32 of Genesis, Jacob prays, “God of my father Abraham and of my father Isaac, I am unworthy of all the kindness You have shown me. I last crossed this river with nothing but my staff in my hand and now I have grown to 2 camps. Deliver me, I pray, from my brother Esau, for I am afraid of him. For it was You who said to me, I will make your offspring like the sand of the sea.”

            Thus, we see that the second time, when Jacob prays, he no longer tries to make a deal with God. He does not present his long list to God about food, clothing, prosperity or a safe return. From the above prayer, we see that it acknowledges that there is no currency in which God can be paid, for blessing and helping us. He cannot be bribed! If we were to paraphrase the second prayer of Jacob, it would simply mean this, “God, I have no claims on You and nothing to offer You. You have already given me more than I had any right to expect. There is only one reason for my turning to You now – because I need you. I am scared; I have to face up to something hard tomorrow and I am not sure I can do it alone without you. God, You once gave me the reason to believe that I was capable of making something of my life. If You mean it, then You had better help me now, because I can’t handle this alone.”

            From the above prayer, it shows that Jacob does not ask God to make Esau go away, to cripple Esau’s strength or magically erase his memory. He only asks God to make him less afraid by letting him know that He is at His side, so that whatever the day might bring he will be able to handle it because he won’t have to face it alone.

            Yet life can sometimes be hard. For that we move on to the next section.  

Popular posts from this blog

In the world yet not of the world

Image
  IN THE WORLD YET NOT OF THE WORLD MARIO D’COUTO           Being in the world and yet not of it is something that can be a struggle, at least for me and what I mean by that is in as much as we desire to be good and to do good, God is not going to put a glass jar over us and say that just because we choose to love Him and follow Him more closely, that He is going to shield us from the temptations of this world. To make things clear though, this is not to say that the world in itself is bad or evil nor are the things found in the world either but how we deal with it is what will make us or break us. We all have responsibilities and important things that need our attention. If we are not careful though, our hearts and minds can be consumed with the task of keeping them afloat. Rather than centering ourselves in Christ and letting the other elements of our lives take their rightful place around that center, we can end up shifting our attention fr...
Read more

The Gift of Life

  THE GIFT OF LIFE  Mario D’Couto  The above video may seem to put human existence in a rather pessimistic way as if to say that our lives did not really matter and while no doubt there is some element of truth in it, I still feel that if lived well, there is meaning and purpose to our lives and that none of our lives is some sort of haphazard creation.  As I celebrate my gift of life tomorrow, I suddenly began to think that if we compare ourselves to the vastness of the universe and everything else that exists in it, we may perhaps be nothing more than a tiny dot floating on the surface of the earth and yet in as much as such a thing may appear insignificant, the One who created everything chooses to have a personal relationship with that tiny dot, that is, ourselves. This is something truly uplifting, which gives meaning and purpose to our lives and our existence. At the same time, it is also a reminder for us to stay grounded especially in those moments when w...
Read more

Are you creative?

Image
  ARE YOU CREATIVE? Mario D’Couto                         Can you imagine a world without creativity? What would the world look like if there was no creativity? Well, for all we can expect, it would be pretty boring and dull. There would be no speech, no songs, no tools, no ideas such as love, freedom or democracy. It would be an existence so mechanical and impoverished that none of us would want to be a part of.             To achieve the kind of world we consider human, some people had to dare to break the thrall of tradition. Next, they had to find ways of recording those new ideas or procedures that improved on what went on before. Finally, they had to find ways of transmitting the new knowledge to the generation to come. Those who were involved in this process we call creative. What we call culture or those parts of our selves that we internalized from the social...
Read more