Testing God

In James 4:2-3 we are told that we have not because we ask not, and when we do, we ask amiss. In James chapter 1, James tells us that when we ask, we need to ask in faith believing. I think a lot of us have trouble with the part about asking in faith believing. For most of us, it isn’t even a question of can God do it, it’s more, will God do this for me? Each of us knows, at least on some level, that we don’t really deserve God’s grace. We are reminded frequently about how many times we have failed God; why would He even listen to someone like me?

King David once referred to himself as a worm. It’s easy for us to feel unworthy of God’s love, and yet, God says, “Come, let us reason together…” (Isaiah 1:18) Of course, John 3:16 tells us that God loved us enough to sacrifice His only begotten Son for us. We all know that verse, and, yet, we always seem to think that He did that for everybody else. He didn’t. He did it for everybody. You have as much right to claim that promise as anybody else. Remember the man who asked Jesus to heal his son: Jesus asked him if he believed, and his answer was, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.”

Somebody told me yesterday that asking God for something was like testing God, and you shouldn’t do that. Let me refer you back to James again, where he said, you have not because you ask not. Don’t misunderstand me: God is not a Genie in a bottle that you can go to when you need something, or just want something. There has to be some relationship there first. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a strong, long lasting relationship, at least, not to ask God to teach you how to be closer to Him. You can ask that one even if you barely have an inkling of who God is.

Seriously, though, look through the Gospels: How many people got healed without asking Jesus? I can’t think of one. There were even two blind men that cried out to Jesus when everybody else told them to leave Jesus alone. Don’t you know that He’s busy? Don’t you know that He has more important things to do than to worry about your eyes? You’ve been blind a long time, you’re used to it now; leave Him alone. These blind men were smart enough to know that if they wanted to be healed, they were never going to get a better chance. Sometimes we think our own problems are too trivial for God, and so we don’t ask. Sometimes we let other people tell us that our problems are too trivial for God. You can’t bother God with that! Don’t you understand who God is? I understand that God is someone who cares about each individual person that He created. He wants the best for each one of us. The reason we don’t have the best is because too many of us try to do things our own way, instead of praying through what we want with God, and finding out what He wants us to have.

When Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, He asked the Father would “take this cup from me,” in other words, find some other way to impart salvation other than through the crucifixion, but He also said, “nevertheless, Thy will be done.” We, too, must be prepared to accept that God may not want us to have what we want to have. What seems the best in our eyes may not really be the best at all. God understands that. I mentioned earlier that David called himself a worm, but when Nathan confronted David about the matter of Bathsheba, God spoke through Nathan and reminded David of all the things that He had given him, and told him that He would have given him more if those things had been enough. Think about that for a minute: David wasn’t in trouble so much for wanting, but for not asking. What do we settle for, when God has so much more for us?