God has something better for you than you’re even prepared to ask for

Photo by Taneli Lahtinen on Unsplash

Some praying people are conditioned to think that their prayers, however small, won’t be heard, let alone answered. Let’s not call it wrong, but theirs is a doubting faith.

There is an opposite kind of person who prays big prayers in the fullest expectancy of their prayers being answered. Let’s not call it right, but theirs is an expectant faith.

But this article isn’t really about whether
God answers our prayers or not.

It’s about something more abundantly concrete. It’s about the reality that God is building a future for each of us that we would scarcely dream or imagine could be ours. And this isn’t some prosperity doctrine mumbo jumbo — like, God is going to favour you and your family in many material ways; O Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz!

This is centrally about being open to a plan that God has for our lives that even we can’t dream up.

Part of this openness is the acceptance that comes with maturity. Another part of this openness is the wisdom of faith that acknowledges we see in a mirror, which is our life, dimly, and is prepared to risk that image for something only a good God would give; something better.

God has a reality for us that we will certainly step into
and we will be in that reality in that time to come.

Life will not, and cannot, remain as it is now.

Pick a point in time and go there with your future, say five years from now, and know that that reality God has appointed — to you. You don’t know it yet. You cannot even foresee it. As you look back five years and couldn’t imagine being where you’re at now, as you look five years ahead, there are realities you cannot dream up from this limited vantage point.

If you’re prepared to dream big with God, to invest and sow, those investments and that sowing will reap a harvest, at the appointed time, if you do not give up (Galatians 6:9).

When given an option of being positive about the future or negative, one sows hope and the other sows despair. Which attitude will you choose? None of us can afford to be against ourselves. None of us can afford to be against others.

We need to be for us as God is for us.
We need to be for others as God is for others.
God will look after the rest!

Perhaps the heart of our prayers for ourselves and our future reside not in an expectant faith nor a doubting faith, but in an accepting faith — accepting that God desires good for us, and that it is our job to sow in faith.

God’s desires are always more unknown to us than they are known to us. We simply must trust that His desires for us are better than we could, in our limited vision, desire for ourselves.

Let’s not sell God short on what He desires to do in us and through us, for us and for others.

An accepting faith surrenders my hopes
into God’s more than capable hands
knowing, with Him, it is well with my soul.

An accepting faith is neither wishing more from God than He might give us, nor is it settling for much less than He would do in and through us.

An accepting faith gives our life over to Him, for His use and for His glory, and whatever is for God’s glory is ultimately in our best interests.