Skip to main content

No bail out needed

Don’t bargain with God. Be direct. Ask for what you need. This is not a cat-and-mouse, hide-and-seek game we’re in. (Luke 11:13)

Do you bargain with God? You know what I mean - those little prayers where you promise to do something if God does something you need him to do. It is never wrong to ask God to intervene when we need help, but have you ever stopped to consider if the 'mess' you need help in might have been avoided if you'd have spent a little more time 'up front' asking God if this was the direction you were to take in the first place? I know I am guilty of plunging ahead and then stepping back at some point wondering how on earth I "missed God" along the way! The truth is that I didn't miss him - he wasn't there to be found! It was a path he had advised me to not take in the first place - so when I took it, it was like he was just standing there waiting for me to realize I needed to turn around! That is how I get into those 'bargaining moments' with God - "Get me out of this mess I got myself into and I will...." Have you been there?

To bargain with implies we are haggling with God - we are looking for a 'good deal' out of a lousy situation. We are attempting to negotiate our way into a better spot because the one we are in is just not measuring up to what we expected. I have found I need to be direct with God - admit I got myself into the mess and then listen closely to what he answers when I ask him how I could have avoided the mess in the first place. Chances are he will show me a multitude of subtle compromises along the way that I made and the times when I ignored his subtle, but consistent niggling to stop before I went down the path. Did you notice I said "I" made the mess and "I" ignored his urges? More often than not I have come to God at the end of all those "I" moments and admitted how much "I" created a big mess of things in my life. That isn't the moment to 'bargain with' God, though - there is nothing I have in that place that I can 'negotiate' with, is there?

God isn't going to play a cat-and-mouse game with us when we come to him for his wisdom concerning any course we are about to take. He is straight-forward with us - showing us where our motives are not aligned with his and how our heart will lead us astray if we continue to take the actions we are about to undertake. I believe some of us believe this life with Jesus is kind of like a 'contract' of sorts. If we meet this stipulation in the 'contract', then God will fulfill the contract in some manner. While our relationship with God is based upon a covenant, it is not a 'stipulated agreement'. In fact, it was entirely God's part that made the 'covenant' active and binding. Nothing we 'do' makes this a binding contract - it is entirely God's action on our part to give his Son for our sins and then to allow his blood to meet the required 'elements' of the 'covenant contract'. Jesus' shed blood met the conditions of the covenant - so even his covenant with us isn't based upon US.

Instead of bargaining (negotiating, haggling) with God maybe we need to just stop long enough to listen to his voice - his prompting, niggling, or urging. We might just find we don't feel like we need to 'bargain with' him because we realize there is much more reward in hearing his voice up front - negating the need to get with God to bail us out when we find we are facing stuff we didn't expect to encounter. There is much more reward in waiting upon God's timing than to turn back to him telling him we need a 'bail out'. Just sayin!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

What did obedience cost Mary and Joseph?

As we have looked at the birth of Christ, we have considered the fact he was born of a virgin, with an earthly father so willing to honor God with his life that he married a woman who was already pregnant.  In that day and time, a very taboo thing.  We also saw how the mother of Christ was chosen by God and given the dramatic news that she would carry the Son of God.  Imagine her awe, but also see her tremendous amount of fear as she would have received this announcement, knowing all she knew about the time in which she lived about how a woman out of wedlock showing up pregnant would be treated.  We also explored the lowly birth of Jesus in a stable of sorts, surrounded by animals, visited by shepherds, and then honored by magi from afar.  The announcement of his birth was by angels - start to finish.  Mary heard from an angel (a messenger from God), while Joseph was set at ease by a messenger from God on another occasion - assuring him the thing he was about to do in marrying Mary wa

A brilliant display indeed

Love from the center of who you are ; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply ; practice playing second fiddle. Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder. (Romans 12:9-12) Integrity and Intensity don't seem to fit together all that well, but they are uniquely interwoven traits which actually complement each other. "Love from the center of who you are; don't fake it." God asks for us to have some intensity (fervor) in how we love (from the center of who we are), but he also expects us to have integrity in our love as he asks us to be real in our love (don't fake it). They are indeed integral to each other. At first, we may only think of integrity as honesty - some adherence to a moral code within. I believe there is a little more to integrity than meets the eye. In the most literal sense,

Do me a favor

If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care—then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand. (Philippians 2:1-4) Has God's love made ANY difference in your life? What is that difference? Most of us will likely say that our lives were changed for the good, while others will say there was a dramatic change. Some left behind lifestyles marked by all manner of outward sin - like drug addiction, alcoholism, prostitution, or even thievery. There are many that will admit the things they left behind were just a bit subtler - what we can call inward sin - things like jealousy,