Love Is Not Easily Angered

Love is not easily angered

My son Ben woke me up one morning saying he wanted to bake a gingerbread house. I told him we can’t as he had school that day and we didn’t have time to make one. So, then he tells me he already has one and want it. I tell him that he needs to find it then, thinking I misunderstood what he was asking for. Then he tells me it is pretend and I tell him that he can have his pretend gingerbread house and go to make his breakfast. After a while, he comes to me again wanting it. This time he tells me that it isn’t pretend and that Santa brought it to him (which, in reality, he never received) and wants me to find it for him. The whole time he goes into elaborate detail about how it is small with snow on the roof, little holes in the floor and holds cookies and then gets angry and throws a huge tantrum over not getting what he wants. Sometimes our prayer requests are like that of a preschooler, we ask over and over again for the same thing, in different ways, not hearing the answer, or hoping God will change his mind.



Of course, we may not have elaborate descriptions of our requests like Ben does. What we do, is try to justify why we should be granted our prayers; We should marry this man because then we’ll be happy; We should find a new job as our life will be better; or even, we should buy this house as we will spend the rest of our lives here. With all these prayers, when can we tell if God is making us wait or telling us “No”?

Reasons we might have to wait:

1) Above all, God is never going to give us more than we are able to handle. For this reason, he may make us wait as we are not yet ready mentally and spiritually for what we are asking for. So, during your wait, God is preparing you to be ready. Even David, who went up against the Philistine Goliath with only a sling shot, was ready when he followed God’s plan as when he was a shepherd, he would kill lions and bears who attacked his flock with said sling shot. To a little boy, these animals were Goliaths themselves.

2) He is teaching us patience. When we learn patience, we also learn to be thankful for what we receive once we are blessed. If God always answered our prayers immediately, we would always expect it and start taking God for granted, leading away from love and into sin.

3) While we wait, we strengthen our faith in God. For without faith our prayers won’t be answered. Jesus tells us: “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believed that you will receive it, and it will be yours. And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven, may forgive your trespasses.” Mark 11: 24-25.

Sometimes God is quick to answer prayers, and other times he makes us wait a long time. If we are waiting a long time and are doing everything we should be doing with great faith and joy, then why is it taking so long? It could be because the answer is “no.” God can see everything around us and his plan for us is usually not what we expect and sometimes it can be not what we want as well. How can we tell if God isn’t going to grant our prayers?

1) It isn’t going to happen if you have to force it yourself. That isn’t to say you should expect God to hand you things on a silver platter. You have to do the work to obtain things, whether it is just through faith and prayer, studying for an education, or putting in resumes and going on interviews for a great job. When you try to force things, you will find yourself drifting away from God and life altogether will get harder.

2)When you are putting your own interpretation on the word of God to suit your wants, then it is not truly God’s voice. In 2 Timothy 4: 3-5, we are warned: “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.” Many well-known people have misquoted the bible to suit their purposes. Romans 13 is a notable passage which has been misused by both the Nazis to assert Hitler’s authority over Germany and even more recently by Attorney General Jeff Sessions to defend the separation of children from their families at the U.S. border. “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established.” The passage does describe how those authorized by God differ from those of their own making, but these parts are conveniently left out.

3) If there is sin involved in your prayer request, the answer is most assuredly, “no.” If your request brings harm to yourself or others, either physically, spiritually or mentally, then God is denying it. Sometimes this is hard to see, as we put on blinders and cannot see the consequences of these requests while God can. We just need to trust him.

How should we react when God refuses our desires? So many people turn away from him, like an unrepentant toddler. They ask why God didn’t save their dying relative or friend, or why didn’t God deliver them from their own personal hell? In fact, when a Christian of deep faith, our trials seem harder and occur more often. Before, we were able to turn to vices for comfort, but now, as we are attempting to live free of sin, turning to God when we don’t completely understand his actions is difficult to do when we are going through difficult times.

Here is what we can do to keep our faith in God and understand why he has rejected our request:

1) Beware of Satan’s lies. The devil will try to sow seeds of doubt towards God within us. He will say that God is cruel and doesn’t love us. This is untrue. God rejects our request because of his love for us. Just as we reject our children’s constant bombardments of requests as they are unhealthy or to help our children grow, so does God.

2) Trust in God’s wisdom. Have faith that God knows what he is doing. He has such great plans for our lives if we are willing to be patient and give our best to him.

Reflection:

Do you ever get angry?

Does that anger ever get turned towards God?

How hard do you pray? How often?

Is God saying no, or not right now?