Coffee With Mo..

I heard once that God sometimes gives us things to pray about so we will talk to him. Ya know what? That makes sense.

It reminds me of another short clip I read where a man called his daughter and expressed to her that he and her mother were getting a divorce. After hanging up, the daughter, feeling a bit frantic, called her brother. “We have to meet with mom and dad and talk some sense in to them; dad said they are getting a divorce.” The sister and brother agreed to fly home. The brother called dad to let him know the two of them were coming to talk with he and their mom. “Please, he insisted, don’t make any decisions until we get there.” Dad hung up the phone, winked at mom and said, start cooking, the kids will be home for Thanksgiving.”

Sometimes we have to get the attention of those we love in order to feel like we matter.

Our relationship with God is not supposed to be one of going to Him only because we need something and the rest of the time carrying on like “we” can handle everything. God wants us to depend on Him and realize there are things we can’t do alone. The thing is, we should have a daily relationship with Him and talk to Him just like we would an earthly parent.

We should express our concerns, doubts and fears, but also praise Him for everything He’s done for us. Even those things we haven’t asked Him for. Many times it becomes a conversation that’s one-sided. Often we don’t listen for His response…or want to accept it… if the answer is “No”, or “Wait”, or “Maybe”. We want to hear “Yes, and we want to hear it immediately. I have prayed prayers that were answered right away, and some prayers that were not answered for many years.

What is our motive and what mountain needs to be moved before a prayer can be answered? Is it a selfish prayer? Are we asking God to change someone against their will, because we don’t like something about them? Being a dictator and telling God what to do will never end well.

We tell God what we’re unhappy about. We tell Him all about the bad things going on in our lives and we asked Him to fix. But do we talk to Him like we love Him? If we not aware of it, we may basically be giving God orders as though He’s our genie in a bottle. Some may think of God as a big grandfather sitting up in heaven waiting for us to make our requests known and giving us what we ask for. God answers prayers, but there are conditions for God answering prayer, such as, why are we asking for the thing we want or think we need? Are we talking to Him daily, asking Him to direct us and help us make the right decisions before we make the mistake we are asking Him to reverse? We are here for a short time, and in that time, we are to learn some things in preparing us to be ready for Heaven. One of the most difficult but the one Jesus instructed us to do is to Love those around us called neighbors, & to Love God with all of our heart.

In the many years I have lived, I have found many tares (weeds) among the wheat. Love is the hardest thing for us to learn, but that one class, Love 101 is what we are here for.

God doesn’t tell us what to do everyday and how to do it. If he did He did, our intentions wouldn’t be real, or our love genuine. There would be resentment, because we were forced. God is a loving God. He wants to have a relationship with you.

Some years. back, I stopped complaining, and started giving thanks more often. I found in the many times when God said No, or Wait, there was a good reason for it, but I didn’t find that out until after the fact. I had the character of one who didn’t want to wait. This was evident when I would ask my former spouse to fix something. Instead of waiting until moss grew on it. I would go ahead and take care of it myself. Sometimes that included lessons like trying to fix my dishwasher & having the motor fall out in the floor, then waiting another 6 months to have it fixed, or trying to make a repair in the house when I didn’t have the right tools.

Try changing your relationship with God to a two-way conversation and ask for direction each day and trust that the direction that he’s given you will lead you to the right place. You might find life is much easier when you take some of the pressure off your own shoulders and put it on the one who wants to carry it. Some people are so afraid of Christianity stopping them from doing the things that they want to do, they avoid God. Christianity is really not that way at all. If you don’t already have some of these habits in place, it won’t hurt to give it a try. What have you got to Gain? Your soul.

Maybe, just maybe, God won’t have to give you things to pray about to get your attention.

Sincerely, Mo