Here’s a story that reveals the core-issue as to why many believers are not experiencing the full manifestation of all that Christ has done and given to them. At the same time it reveals the key how to experience an enjoyable relationship with God.
Anabel Gillham, who past away in 2010, has left quit a legacy including some great stories. Here is one of them.
Amy is seven years old. She has a loving mother and dad who have communicated that love to her through the early years of childhood – from her first breath of earth-air.
Her dad, especially, is her close companion – he holds her, teaches her, expresses his love for her in many and various ways – a thoughtful, protective, loving relationship.
But something strange begins to happen one morning as Amy seeks out her dad and asks, “Daddy, do you love me?”
“Why, of course, I love you, sweetie-dearly. You know that. Come let me give you a big hug to start the day.”
“Well, I just wanted to be sure this morning. And Daddy, will you please take care of me today?”
“Take care of you? What do you mean, Amy? I watch over you like a dog watches over a bone. Is something wrong, Honey? Are you scared? Is something going on at school? Have I disappointed you in some way?”
“Oh, no. I just want to ask you to love me and take care of me today. Will you please do that for me, Daddy? Promise?”
“I don’t understand, Amy. You know how much I love you and how very important it is to me to take good care of you. What’s going on in that mind of yours?”
“I just need you to convince me, Daddy, that you really do love me and that you really will take good care of me today…”
Every morning Amy comes to her dad with those same plaintive questions.
What do you suppose that does to her daddy? How does it make him feel?
Now consider this. Don’t we do the very same thing with our eternal Father?
Eph. 1:4 says that we are His children, living within His constant care.
Before the foundation of the world He chose us to become, in Christ, His holy and blameless children living within His constant care (Eph. 1:4, Phillips)
That means that I am living within His constant care. Doesn’t it?
The big question is: Do I believe this?
Do I accept this as truth or do I evaluate it from experience?
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If this is true for me, is it also true for my circle of loved ones who have through faith become His children?
If God has said He constantly cares and protects – this as being a part of my position…the position of any person in Christ Jesus – why do we go to Him constantly in prayer about it?
Pleading with Him, “Oh Lord, watch over my loved ones today?”
Did He stop caring?
Or we implore Him saying, “God, protect us from danger…Surround us with Your angels…Give us travel mercies, blah, blah.”
Or, “God, I’m broke, I need finances, give me money.”
At the same time reminding Him that I am trusting Him, “God, I trust You” – as though He might have forgotten since last night or yesterday.
Doesn’t that sound like a contradiction to you?
God says one thing, “I constantly care.”
We say the opposite, “God, please take care.”
Indeed. this mindset simply reveals a lack of knowledge of the truth, which results in faithless prayers and if that’s the way you are “praying,” than that’s why your prayers aren’t working.
Asking Him to do what He has promised to do?
Extracting more promises, more words of encouragement, insisting that God would tell me – just one more time – about His faithfulness to me, forgetting the days and months and years that I have experienced His constant care?
Wouldn’t this be an affront to God?
An act of unbelief perhaps?
Wouldn’t this communicate a basic insecurity to Him? That I just can’t quite believe His promises?
To have an enjoyable relationship with God is to chose to believe what He says is true.
And to not base your doctrines on what people have told you (even tough we do learn from others) or what you’ve made up out of your own thought processes, but to study the Word for yourself and trust in the Holy Spirit who will lead you into all truth.
Otherwise you might end up using God as someone to come to for cleansing prayers or ask for things that are already a “yes” and “amen” through Jesus.
Or your relationship with God becomes one where you’re always expecting Him to give, to come through, or to somehow prove Himself in your life instead of just enjoying each others company, doing life together while you’re feasting at the table of the finished-work-goodies.
Friend, let’s continue to choose to believe what God says is true.
Life becomes a lot more fun and less boring when you live and pray in line with the finished work of Christ.
Solid,
