I was sitting in church a few weeks ago and felt the Lord press upon my heart to, “regale My throne with your requests!” In that moment it dawned on me how many times I fail to ask God to be present in my situations and to work in the lives of my loved ones. Let’s face it, life can get remarkably busy and when we are not facing a crisis, it is easy to miss regularly engaging with God.
God’s invitation that morning has caused me to examine my life and work to make my time with God more relational. What follows is a few thoughts from my reflections.
A Change in Perspective: Inviting God into Our Lives
One thought is that asking God to be involved in our lives, shifts our focus from situations we face to who God is. It moves us to make an intentional connection with Him. Being in His presence can mightily impact our perspective of our daily life in some positive ways. One illustration that comes to mind is from 2 Kings 6:8-23 when Elisha and his servant were surrounded by the army of the king of Aram. Elisha’s servant saw that they were surrounded, and he was afraid. Yet, Elisha prayed, God opened the servant’s eyes, and he was able to see the army of the Lord surrounding the Aramean army.
That is a dramatic illustration, but I believe it is a true one for us today. When we seek God in our trying situations, or even our everyday situations, we frequently experience a change in perspective. Those things that are concerning or overwhelming us get smaller as we invite the King of the Universe to intervene in our lives.
It is too easy to forget that God is on our side and that He wants to fulfill His purpose in and through us. When we get busy with life and fail to take the time to involve Him in our daily circumstances, we might live a life that is satisfying enough to keep us placated, but we miss living a life that can be extraordinary. We tend to think of prayer as being a formal – on our knees type of activity where we stop everything and pray. Rather, prayer and engaging with God can be as effortless and natural as breathing, or walking.
Understanding God’s Silence: A Path to Maturity
Part of my own reluctance to ask more is that there are areas of my life where I have been asking for a long time and it can seem like God has turned a deaf ear. I sometimes forget that God is not a celestial vending machine just waiting for me to ask so that He can reply. Rather, God seeks relationship with us. He desires intimate knowing with us. God already knows everything about you and me. It is we who need to grow to know Him more intimately. Yet, while God knows everything about us, He desires relational experience with us. It is one thing to know a person, it is quite another thing to experience daily life with a person. God desires for us to know Him in our daily experience.
Sometimes God’s silence can be painful and frustrating, but it is a maturing process for us. When God is silent, will we give up and say God is not interested, or that He has given up on us? Or will we press on in faith to search for His involvement in our lives? Our choice reveals our faith. Do I believe God has my best interest at heart? If I do, I will press in and grow closer to Jesus. If I remain aloof from God and do not engage with Him, then perhaps the belief in my heart is that God does not really care.
A Deeper Relationship: Beyond Formal Prayer
God’s call for me to “regale My throne with your requests” was a call to a deeper relationship with Him. God desires the same for and from each of us. I encourage each of you reading this to regale God’s throne with your requests. His invitation is consistent with Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. God desires to hear from His people. The statement is an invitation to invest not only our time, but our hearts in knowing our Creator, our Savior, our King, and our God. It is also an offer by God to be engaged with us in our daily lives. It is God saying, “I love you and want to walk with you in this life.”
The apostle Paul encouraged us in this regard when he said to “approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need” Hebrews 4:16 CSB. I sure I am not the only one who sometimes feels like God does not have the time or interest in my insignificant life. But that is not a biblical perspective. It is a lie we too easily believe that prevents us from receiving all God has for us to experience.
When life is comfortable, it is far too easy to forget about connecting with God. When trials come, or world events cause stress, we run to God in desperation out of our need. But God is available when things are going well too. In fact, when we cultivate our relationship with God in the good times, life can get more fulfilling than we ever dreamed. This prepares us for the trials we inevitably will face down the road. Most people who choose to follow the Lord in life will have times when we need His grace just to get through the next hour, or the present day. Having cultivated a close relationship with God gives us a perspective that readily moves us to seek Him in the tough times.
In 2 Timothy 3:12, Paul told Timothy that everyone who desires to live a godly life will experience persecution. While blatant persecution is not as common in North America as it is in other parts of the world, followers of Jesus frequently experience a subtle form of persecution. Whether the challenging times we endure in Christ are a result of persecution or ostracization from other people, or simply the trials that life can throw at us, when we make the effort to grow in Christ in our easier times, we become equipped for the more challenging times of life. We will be able to stand and remain standing at the end of every battle and trial.
Patience in God’s Timing: Spiritual Growth Takes Time
We can become discouraged when we make our desires known to God and we do not see Him answer us. Sometimes we do not see the answer because we are too impatient. When builders build a skyscraper in a city, they start by digging a hole. Some of the things we ask for in life require a lot of time for God to build us into the kind of person who can handle that for which we are asking.
God frequently gives us callings into which we must grow. We grow into them by being faithful and by gaining experience in walking with God. Sometimes the path to living our purpose seems obscure. Abraham and Sarah took matters into their own hands when they decided that Abraham should sleep with Hagar so she could give him a son. Yet, this did not work out the way they had planned (see Genesis 16 and 21). God’s purpose for Abraham and Sarah could not be fulfilled through human means or in human time.
Joseph, in his youthful exuberance, shared his dreams with his brothers and father and ended up being sold as a slave in Egypt. Furthermore, he was falsely accused by Potifar’s wife and thrown into prison for fourteen years. Joseph must have wondered how God could fulfill His purpose for his life as he labored in prison. Yet, Joseph was faithful, and his administrative skills were used and matured in every place he found himself. You can read Joseph’s about dreams and his rise to power in Genesis 37 and 39 – 47.
David was tested and matured as he spent years running from king Saul, who was committed to killing him. Yet during those years, David learned to trust God and lead his men. David was anointed king by Samuel when he was in his late teens. He became king over part of Israel at the age of thirty. It was another seven years before he was made king over the whole nation. David’s anointing and the journey of his ascension to king of Israel are recorded in 1 Samuel 16 – 2 Samuel 5.
God groomed all these men while they openly lived life before God. They had their human flaws, but each one was faithful and grew into the role to which God had called them. As humans, we want what we want now. The church in America is programmed to seek fast results and instant gratification. But the Holy Spirit takes His time to work the character of Christ into our lives. The character of a mature follower of Christ is formed by staying in God’s crucible where the trials of this life shape us into the image of Jesus. There are things we can do to facilitate that growth, but there are no shortcuts.
God will test us so that we can know it is God who is doing the blessing not us somehow earning it. Abraham waited 25 years. Joseph, who had dreams from God of being a ruler to whom his family would bow down to, waited about 20 years before those dreams were fulfilled. David, who was anointed to be king of Israel by Samuel, labored in faith about 15 years before becoming king over part of the nation and another seven years before his kinship was fully established. These men lived before God in faith as they waited for God to fulfill His purpose in their lives.
The Journey to Fulfillment: Trusting God’s Purpose
God has saved each of us for a purpose. Ephesians 2:10 states that, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” NIV. This verse tells us that God has work for each of us. God does not save us to live with ambiguity. He saved us for a purpose-His purpose. When we find His purpose for our lives, we discover a freedom in life that is impossible outside a relationship with God.
Are you looking for understanding about the struggle of living life for Christ? Do you want to live better than you do? Do you have questions about God’s purpose for your life?
Check out my website https://bradchurch.com for more information about finding your purpose. You can also sign up for a weekly journal post and get more information about my upcoming book release of The Stranger’s Conflict in January.
Build a faith that endures by cultivating a relationship with Jesus.
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