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- Written by: Don Goulding
Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive it, so that your joy may be complete. (John 16:24)
I needed a sermon illustration for how God answers prayer. At the same time our phone required service. I reported the trouble, then asked the Lord to cause the usually sluggish repair service to handle the matter in a timely way. This would be the perfect example for my sermon on trusting God. I wasn’t going to take matters into my own hands and pester the phone company.
Two days went by and I was tempted to make a follow-up call. Soon four days lapsed, then five. I was squirming to know if my service order had been deleted by accident, yet I wanted to hold out so the Lord could provide a living illustration.
“Okay God, I can give you until three o’clock tomorrow, then my sermon has to go forward.”
The deadline came and went, and the phone wasn’t fixed. I was out of an illustration, a telephone, and confidence in prayer.
I asked God why my experiment failed and he reminded me I often mislabel my requests as kingdom necessities. It’s silly to think I can manipulate God by declaring that my agenda is on his behalf. The relationship works the other way around. To ask in Jesus’s name is to pray in harmony with his desire. It’s not the magic utterance tacked on the end that will force the genie to perform.
When we were children my siblings and I bought our father an Easter present—a live, fluffy chick. It was a thinly veiled ploy to obtain something he’d probably not allow. As children, we lacked the foresight that a chick would grow into a rooster who crowed in the city at five in the morning. Dad named the bird No No and sent it away after the first screeching attempts at cock-a-doodle-do.
Rather than manipulating our father, we might have simply asked, “Is there a pet that would be good for us?” What loving parent could refuse such a request? That’s the kind of humble dependance I need in my prayers so my joy will be complete.
Prayer: Patient Father, show me what you want me to ask.
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- Written by: Don Goulding
Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. (Ephesians 4:2-3) (NIV)
In the Winnie the Pooh story by A. A. Milne, Rabbit suggests they cure Tigger of his bouncing by losing him in the woods overnight.
“Oh, we'll find him again next morning, and mark my words, he'll be a humble Tigger, a sad and small Tigger, an ‘Oh, Rabbit, am I glad to see you’ Tigger. And it'll take the bounces out of him, that's what!”
The misguided plan backfires and it’s Rabbit himself who gets lost. His friends rescue him and he comes out of the long night humbled from his pride.
When it comes to nonessential doctrines, I feel like Rabbit. I used to be confident of my beliefs and critical of those who differed. I reveled in debates to prove my points but what came out of my mouth was often intended to make me win rather than magnify Jesus.
Students of theology are soon faced with a bramble of opinions and the thorny disagreements that have plagued church history. They learn how wholly inadequate human speech is for heavenly truths and feel the prickliness of wordy debates. They realize navigation by human intellect without direction from the Holy Spirit leaves us thrashing in circles far removed from God’s path.
It’s time to stop pretending I or any human can fully elucidate subjects like predestination or eschatology. I must admit I’m Rabbit, lost in the dark woods, afraid and confused. I can’t get myself free of the tangle of nonessential doctrines.
From outside the forest I hear voices. Jesus and my truest friends are searching for me. They’re calling me out of the maelstrom. I no longer have to systematize biblical conundrums. I need only follow the voice of Jesus, return to his simple gospel, and let him bring me past the doctrinal thickets into the full light of grace.
I went into the bramble of secondary doctrines with an attitude of “I have answers that will unbounce others.” I’m coming out of those same woods a broken Rabbit, an “Oh, Jesus, am I glad to see you” Rabbit.
Prayer: King Jesus, may humility close my mouth except to glorify you.
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- Written by: Don Goulding
Jerusalem will no longer be enclosed by walls because of the multitude of people and animals there. But I (the Lord says) will be a wall of fire surrounding Jerusalem and the source of glory in her midst. (Zechariah 2:4-5)
“Brr, swoosh,” a big-eyed, brown skinned boy glided a shard of mirror through the air at his orphanage in Tijuana, Mexico. I watched from a distance to avoid bursting his imaginary world. A fragment of glass isn’t a safe plaything and I considered taking the shard away. I couldn’t confiscate his toy without deflating an entire universe of souls desperate for rescue by the heroic Shard of Mirror.
In my own life, I can pick up one shard of life’s brokenness and build an entire universe of delusions around it. A big part of my make-believe world is the wall that surrounds my heart. I imagine bricks of acceptance mortared with ample finances will save me from deadly missiles. I get so caught up in adding defenses that I’m not even aware demons are handing them to me.
The higher my wall rises, they more necessary it becomes in my mind. My wall makes perfect sense to me. Your wall is the one I question. I don’t understand your preoccupations and you think my worries are silly.
“Wake up,” Jesus says. “You don’t need your pretend defenses because you have me.”
He’s right. While some of my fears are from real threats, my defenses are as imaginary as the orphan child’s fantasies. Jesus is the only true wall around me. He alone saves me from my sin guilt. He is the one shield that prevents the missiles of life from ever touching my eternal soul. Wherever I go and whatever happens, Jesus my Sovereign King is there ensuring I have everything I need to honor God in the moment. He will never leave me or forsake me—his words.
I have a wall of fire protecting me and his name is Jesus.
Prayer: Mighty Defender, take down my ridiculous walls so I’ll depend on you.