When I ask God for something, I must admit, it is often from a perspective of begging. I know God will fulfill His Word. He won’t lie. But when one grows up in a church where all you have to do is pray and someone’s healed, then…how come there are often situations where I find that I am not getting the immediate change? A change that I would think was promised to me, because His Word says so. Yesterday, I chose to watch a video of a Christian explaining why he stepped away from a hyper-charismatic church. His reasons listed as no question of authority, lack of tongues showed a second-class Christian, emotionalism, and intense zeal for signs and wonders. I wouldn’t say that there were things stated directly growing up, however, I do understand the internal pressures for gifts, signs and wonders. “In the name of Jesus, be ____________________,” or the like. On some level, if one did not receive what they asked, then one didn’t have enough faith. I remember after my pastor died of cancer, a friend of mine admitted that he believed that he wasn’t healed, because our church didn’t pray for him enough. So…the reasons that signs didn’t happen is because of lack of faith or lack of effort? Frankly, I don’t know how to respond to people who pray for a rebuking of certain things (such as for a minor cold). I don’t know how to receive it. If it worsens or persists for a set amount of time, does that mean the sickness didn’t listen to the rebuke? And if it didn’t, then what does that say about my faith? I have grown up with this feeling that I have to substantiate the signs in my life. What if I asked for a healing, cited God’s Word, but trusted Him with the timing? I don’t want to settle for allowing things of this world to gain reign over God’s kingdom, but SO MUCH of my life has already been built on what I could do. And I’m to a point that I need to trust that God’s Word is true. The fact that I beg when I pray proves that I fail to trust God will do His work. I understand there may be things I need to persevere in prayer. However, I will only truly persevere when I trust God is at work, and He is good. The image of intercession is men praying hours on end. Historically, this was done. Not to negate forefathers of the faith, but what if intercession looked more like every time a person came to mind, I prayed. Maybe pray only for 30 seconds, but it is full of 100% faith and going back to my day? From my experience, when I prayed 30-60 minute prayers, they were done out of duress and anxiety. I pleaded, but it was out of anger. How much trust was in those prayers? I’m not minimizing long prayers. Sometimes they are needed. But, I am finding for myself, a simple sentence prayer does more than a thesis. Long-winded prayers come from a place of telling God my thoughts or a conversation. But it doesn’t explore the trust needed for intercession. I can seek God’s will and ask, but I can’t force His hand. When I pray, I need to fully trust Him. I won’t, however, if I am convinced that signs, healings and wonders are dependent on me. After all, who gets the glory? Because if I think that the healing is on me, then when the healing comes, it will be easy to say, “I PRAYED, and they were healed.” But if I grab a hold of God’s Word, ask for the healing, trust in God’s timing, when the healing comes, I will be more prone to praising Jesus. Not all healings are instant. And maybe that’s where we are getting off wrong…The timing…Even in the Pentacostal, Western mindset, we want a microwave faith. We wouldn’t dare say that God isn’t good. But I wonder how many people, like me, have blamed themselves when the outcome wasn’t what they had asked. How many times was the devil given credit? And sometimes the devil is at work to postpone the work of God. But that doesn’t negate that God is still at work. We partner with Christ in His work, but He still is the one who does the heavy lifting. I want to have faith for the impossible. Moreover, I must first believe that the impossible doesn’t depend on me.
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