Lent 26 Face not hand.

Following on from my post yesterday about prayer I got to thinking about how my children have no idea what goes on behind the scenes in their lives to make everything run ( more or less) smoothly.  They have conversations with me - they ask for things - just like we talk to God and ask for things . Sometimes they get what they want, sometimes they dont.  For reasons they might not understand.  And they certainly dont undersstand that the television licence has to be paid or that the car needs to be serviced or that we pay rates so that the roads dont have potholes.  None of that stuff concerns them  they just focus on whats in front of them on a day to day basis and expect me to meet their needs.

We are like this with God.  We pray and bring our requests before Him not really understanding that He has a whole universe going on and that our requests have to fit in with the requests of everyone else, with what is in our best interests, with what impact the answer will have on our future and the future of others in our sphere.  I have NO idea how God does it.  And Im not in the slightest bit surprised that sometimes we dont get what we ask for or have to wait.

This thinking led me on to the subject of trust.   My kids trust that even though they dont always get what they want, they pretty much always have what they need.  They have learned to trust my judgement . Sometimes they are told no.  They dont like it but they know there is nothing they can do about it.  And they suck it up because at the end of the day they know I love them.  I say yes more often than I say no, and Im also bringing them up to ask for the right things.   My kids would not consider asking me to buy them certain toys or films or comics because we just dont entertain certain types of things in our house.  They know it..  So they dont ask.   As we grow in our relationship with God the ideal is that our thinking is more and more moulded to be like His and that we learn to ask only for those things which we know delight His heart.  In this way more of our prayers are answered because we are asking for the right things in the right way.   We ask because God says we can ask and that we should ask.   But He knows what we need before we need it - so the asking in itself is not the issue.   The issue is that when we ask for something we are coming face to face with God to look Him in the eye and make our request.   It is ' me time'  for God and us.  He just wants to spend time with us.  Prayer is one way of Him doing that.   He encourages us to bring our wants and needs and concerns and plans to Him so that He can sit down with us and love us.

I remember John Wimber saying that the key to worship is to seek His face, not His hand.   ie: worship God for who He is, not for what He does.   Regardless of answered prayer or not, God is worthy of praise and adoration because He is the creator of the universe and the Saviour of the world.  If He never did one good thing for us again till the day we die He has still purchased our salvation at Calvary and given us the gift of eternal life.   He doesnt owe us anything.   He is not obliged to us in any way.  He is Almighty God and the fact that He deigns to speak to us and act for us and answer our prayers is amazing beyond belief.

So today let us leave our requests to one side for a moment and just stop to thank Him and worship Him for the wonderful father, awesome saviour and brilliant friend that He is.