When God’s answer to prayer blows your mind

What if your prayer resulted in more than what you asked? When I read the story of Hannah’s prayer I am struck by how God really gives her more than she asks. She is frustrated because she wants a child. Her pain is real and raw. This is not some minor issue for Hannah. The fact that she is pouring herself out in pain is revealed by Eli’s response to how she looked. For Hannah getting a child would be huge.

But God does what He loves to do. God gives her exceedingly, abundantly above what she could ask or imagine (See Eph 3:20). Not only does she get Samuel as a son she gets 3 more sons and 2 more daughters. Top it off Samuel becomes a key figure in the history of Israel.

Now God does not always answer us the way we want Him to answer. I was reminded at church this morning about when Mary and Martha sent a message to Jesus about Lazarus was sick. Jesus waited till after Lazarus was dead. Sometimes it feels that way. But sometimes Jesus takes those “non-answers” and turns them into the stories of a lifetime. He gave them more than what they asked; it just didn’t look like it at first.

Solomon asks for wisdom and God gives him that and long life and wealth. Elijah asks for a fire to consume the sacrifice and God consumes the altar as well.

Again God doesn’t always answer the way we want Him to, but the story of Hannah reminds me of the powerful trajectory of a single prayer and the nature of the God we pray to. He is a plus some kind of God. He loves to give us bonus answers. He answers and then some. He is God who gives press down shaken together and running over.

Guest Post From Mark Batterson

Today we have a guest blog from Mark Batterson. Mark is lead pastor for National Community Church in Washington DC. He is the author of Circle Maker, and Wild Goose Chase and others (Note: This post was lost in the “Crash” of our website. I wanted to bring it back. It was originally posted in 2012)

 

We tend to think of mercy and grace as the same thing so we praise God for one thing instead of two!  Mercy is NOT getting what you deserve–the wrath of God.  Grace is getting what you DON’T deserve–the righteousness of Christ.  So grateful for both!

I think we sometimes fall into trap of thinking we should need God’s grace less and less. It’s not true. I need God’s grace more and more.  Hopefully we need God’s forgiving grace less as God sanctifies us.  But that is just one dimension of His amazing grace.  I need his gifting grace and empowering grace more and more because I’m in over my head. I keenly aware of the fact that I need his grace more today than I did yesterday.  And I’ll need it more tomorrow than I did today.

I love the exhortation in Hebrews 4:16: “Let us then approach God’s throne of grace that we might receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

How to Eliminate the Majority of Your Worry (Updated)

We were not designed to live with worry. The Bible gives us many things to do to help us eliminate worry from our lives. The YouVersion Bible app sent out a list of their top bookmarked verses. The top verse bookmarked was Philippians 4:6 a verse that step by step helps us deal with worry. It says:  “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”  And the result of this: “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (NIV) So here are the steps:

1. Bring everything to God in prayer.

Pastor Rick Warren once said, “If it is big enough to worry about it is big enough to pray about.” This is a good habit. The practice of bringing things to God what we have no control over frees us to focus on the things we can accomplish. Richard Foster put it this way, “It may be helpful to picture a box in which we place every worry and every care. When it is full, we gift-wrap it, placing a lovely big bow on top, and give it up as a present to the Father. God receives it, and we must not take it back, for to take back a gift once given is most discourteous.” (Sanctuary of the Soul p 63-64)

2. Practice a thankful journal.

The practice of thankfulness is like water on the fire of worry. I take a whole chapter in my book Enjoying Prayer to talk about the impact that thankfulness had on my life. Using a notebook I listed 5 things every day that I was thankful for that day. It had a profound impact on my life and something similar could do the same for you. It seems like a simple thing but the impact of thankfulness has a surprising effect on worry.

3. Develop habits to focus on God.

If we are going to bring our worry to God we need to get our mind on Him. A great thought from one of my college professors was, “Whatever you focus on becomes bigger.” If you focus on your problems they become bigger and bigger and if you focus on God you see how big He is around you. A simple application of this for my life is that I have not watched the local news for years. There are less than a handful of times that this has even mattered and I have less negativity in my life. I have other habits that help me keep my focus on God. By eliminating some of the negative things in my life and adding things that help me focus on God helps cut out some of the “easy” things to worry about in life.

This post does not mean that I am never tempted to worry, but these simple practices help me eliminate some from even coming and gives me tools to fight worry when it comes.

Action item: Take one of these three areas and take action on it in the next 5 minutes.

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