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UGW #9e and 9f: Unanswered prayer/Maybe God's not listening

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  Understanding God's Will 9e: Humbled By Unanswered Prayer: Another problem with the “name it and claim it” interpretation is that we are tempted to bail on God, to criticize ourselves for our “weak” faith, or to question Him when we don’t get the answers that we want or thought we would get.    It confuses us, discourages us, and blows our understanding of God and His Word out of the water.    And I think that God allows this helplessness and futility so that we can learn that it’s not about us, it’s all about Him!    That He is God and we are not!    And so that we dig deeper into the Word to see who God really is and what He has to say through all of it - and not just through the few passages that we are familiar with, that tell us we get what we want when we pray.                We want to lead and have control by our prayers, whereas true faith in God says, “Whatever happens, I still believe in Yo...
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UGW #9d: Idolatrous Prayers

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  Understanding God's Will #9d: (No Calvinism stuff added to this one.  It's just some of my own thoughts.) I think that there is something else that we need to consider when it comes to our requests.    How many times do our requests and our desires for an answer become idolatrous pursuits, taking our focus from God?    I think sometimes this is why many of us end up in the furnace of refining, long waits.    To purify our hearts, to help us weed out wayward desires and idols, and to help us refocus on what we should be focused on: God!              And most of us don’t do this on our own, not when things are going good and we are getting what we want.    Because when things are going our way, we are content to float and to live self-centered, temporally-focused lives.    And we think our relationship with Him must be pretty good for things to be going along so nicely.    And so He ...
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UGW #9c: Other verses on prayer

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  Understanding God's Will #9c: When you isolate a verse, such as  Mark 11:22-24  (about getting what we ask for if we believe we'll get it) from other Scripture, it’s easy to misunderstand it.    It’s easy to make the Mark passage a “name it and claim it in faith” verse when you do not take into account the rest of Scripture.    And this then causes me to focus more on my faith’s ability to make things happen and less on drawing near to God and immersing myself in Him and His Word.    After all, if my faith is enough to get it done, how much do I need Him? Yes, Jesus says “whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”    And I still haven’t fully grasped what He meant by that.    But I think that it is best understood when we take a look at all of Scripture.    Verses cannot be taken separately.    The Word is not like trail mix, where we can pick and choose ...
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UGW #9b: Help for the journey

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  Understanding God's Will #9b: (No Calvinism information added to this post.) So, as seen in the point 9a, faith in God isn’t “claiming” something that He hasn’t promised, believing that He’ll do it just because we believe in His ability to do it.    Godly faith is trusting that He is the God that He claims to be in the Bible and that He will do what’s best, in His time and in His way.    And our job is to follow in obedience, not to lead.                And contrary to the “name it and claim it” way, I believe that we are off-base when we are “claiming” a particular answer to prayer before He reveals it, when we tell Him the answer that we expect and that we are going to wait for.    I think we need to not be claiming specific answers or blessings as much as “instructions” or “help along the way.”              While we can and should pray what's in our...
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UGW #9a: "Name it and claim it" nonsense

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  Understanding God's Will #9a:   (There are no "Calvinism" updates added to this post): How come some prayers don’t seem to work, even when you believe that it’s God’s Will?    And how long do you keep praying for something (especially when it’s a painful issue) when God seems to not be listening or answering (this will be answered in a later post)?                   Boy, I tell you, I struggle with this one all the time.    I want something so bad sometimes (even something that’s good and beneficial), and I pray earnestly for it.    And when it doesn’t happen, I struggle with why my prayers aren’t getting things done.               When we were considering a possible adoption (of a baby of a relative who was possibly going to give her up), I was reading a book that basically taught the “name it and claim it” idea.    If I felt ...
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