UGW #19-21: Praying Wrong, Missing The Path, Called To Where I Don't Want To Go

Understanding God's Will 19 - 21 (no Calvinism stuff added to this post): 

#19.  What if what I’m praying for is not God’s Will or plan for me?  What do I do?  Like the Israelites begging for and getting meat (Numbers 11), could I end up getting what I ask for as sort of a punishment?  

            
I wondered about this one, too.  If I was asking and asking for something that God didn’t want to give me, would He end up giving it to me because I begged so much, but then there would be a punishment attached to it?  That’s how I felt as I pleaded with God for a house.  Would He give us a bad house just to shut me up, as punishment for begging too much, for not "trusting" Him enough and not being happy with what I had?  

I mean, that’s like what happened to the Israelites, right?  Or is it?
           
As I thought about this one, I realized that there is a difference between hardening your heart and rejecting His care for you, and desperately seeking His “Will” in prayer and bringing a request to Him over and over again.  Even if I did "sin" by being anxious and depressed and focusing on getting a certain answer, I was (at the very least) bringing all this to God.  I was pleading with Him.  I was hurting before Him.  And I was, ultimately, desperate to know what He wanted for us.  My heart was turned toward Him.

            
This is different than what the Israelites got punished for.  The Israelites had rejected God’s care for them.  They refused to believe that He was a good God capable of caring for them.  And they didn’t draw near to God through the trials; they pulled away and rebelled, complaining to others instead of going to God in prayer.

            
And so I would have to say that even if what you are asking for is not in line with God’s Will, keep praying with a soft heart.  Keep bringing these petitions before God and being transparent before Him.  And as long as you are soft-hearted and sensitive to Him and drawing near in the pain, God will eventually transform your desires and your Will to be in line with His, and usually by revealing things that you didn’t even know you needed to work on.  And sometimes, through the pain. 

            
But be willing to go with Him where He leads and to let Him make these kinds of changes, and He’ll guide you in the way you should go.  And you’ll eventually be desiring what He wants for you.  It’s hard-hearted rebellion that gets punished.  But soft-hearted seeking (even if we do it wrong at times) gets God’s tender, loving mercy and care.

            
[On a practical note, when I have to choose between different options – such as doing something vs. not doing it, or Option A vs. Option B - there is a “test” that I try to run the options through to help me try to discern if it is the Lord or myself leading.  What I do is run each option through this question:  If I was to choose this one, what would my reason be?  And then I search my heart for what is fueling the desire to choose that path: pride, fear, boredom, frustration, greed, anger, bitterness, selfish desire, impatience, etc.? 

            
And generally, there will be one option that will make me answer something like this, “The only real reason that I would choose this one is because I feel like this is the one God is telling me to choose.”  And this helps me know which one is the right one, until God brings further guidance.  And, interestingly, it’s usually the one that seems the most unreasonable or difficult or scary or impossible.  God does His best work with “the impossible.”  It’s like when I was wondering if I should continue waiting for God to bring us a house or if I should just go out and find one.  When I asked myself, Why would I keep waiting?, the only answer that I could come up with is, Because I feel that’s what God is telling me to do.  And that reason had to be good enough for me!]

And remember that the Holy Spirit intercedes in prayer for us, so we don't always have to know what to pray or how to pray.  Our message will get through because the Holy Spirit helps "clean it up" for us.  

And also remember that God will grant our requests when it's in line with His Will, and so we don't have to be too afraid that asking for things out of His Will will change His Will for us.  If it's not in His Will, He won't grant it.  If it is His Will, He will.  

I think a great prayer to pray, besides "If it be Your Will," is "Close the doors You want closed, open the doors You want opened, and give me the wisdom to know the difference."  I think sometimes God wants to know that we are willing to let Him say "no" to us, that we will still trust Him and praise Him anyway ... before He will say "yes."  And if His answer is really "no," then we'll be much more likely to hear and accept it if we don't get tunnel-vision on getting the "yes" answer we want so badly.         

          
#20.  What if I missed the path that God wanted me to take? 

            
Well, get on the new path!  I think that it is indeed possible to miss the first and best path that God wants us to take, by our refusing to obey and follow Him or by our negligence to pray or seek His guidance.  And I think this happens more than we realize.  

But God is a wise, sovereign God, and He can see how any situation can be turned into good.  And He’s always opening up new paths.  So I would say that if you feel that you’ve missed an opportunity or a path that you knew God wanted you to take, don’t dwell on it.  This prevents you from being of further use to Him.  It makes you stuck, bitter, depressed. 
            
Ask for forgiveness, return to Him with all your heart, seek righteousness and obedience, and pray.  And just know that He will work it out for good.  He has many back-up plans.  He will use our mistakes and detours to work out something good, if we love Him and if we let Him.  It doesn’t mean that it would be the same path He desired in the first place, but it will still be amazing, fulfilling, and God-glorifying. 

            
And remember that He always knew the mistakes that we were going to make.  They were no surprise to Him.  He’ll never say, “Oh, gee!  I didn’t know she was going to do that.  Now that really messes up My plan.  I guess I’ll have to tinker with some more ideas and see what I can put together to make use of that mistake.”  From the beginning of time, He saw the mistakes we would make, and He saw how He could use them.  His job is to work it into something good.  Our job is to allow Him to, remaining in Him and being obedient from here on out.   

            
This idea really relieved me of the guilty stress I was feeling when I was afraid that I botched up the whole “house buying” process by getting paperwork in late.  I felt that I absolutely blew it and that God was now confused and confounded and didn’t know how to spin my human mistake into something good.  I felt like I threw Him a curveball.  But then, I realized that He knew all along that I would make that mistake.  And that if it was still His plan that we get the house He wanted for us, He would be able to cover my mistake.  That was such a freeing, merciful, gracious thought.  And I could rest in Him, instead of continuing to beat myself up over it.

            
And you have to remember that you can never really know what would have happened or where you would be right now if you had taken that “other” path.  Learn to like the path you are on, to enjoy the blessings and the good in it, and to glorify God in it.  And don’t dwell on “what could’ve been.”  There is no comfort in that and no glory for God in that.  He is with you here-and-now, working the present situations into something good.  He is not then-and-there, back on the path that you “should have” taken.  He’s moved on to another good path and plan, and He’s asking you to come with Him.  Glorify Him wherever you are! 

            

However, I am not talking here about the times that God does indeed want us to go back to the “then and there” to make things right.  There are times when God might be waiting on us to stop glossing over some past mistake or failure and to go back and make it right.  And our relationship with Him will be hindered until we do.  

Are you having an affair?  Don’t just sweep it under the rug, thinking, Well, what’s done is done.  I’m already this deep into it, may as well keep going with it.  Make it right!  Clean up your life.  

Have you cheated at something?  It may be necessary for you to confess and come clean.  

Have you broken a vow?  Make it right!  

Have you chosen a bad path you shouldn't stay on?  Figure out how to get off of it and how God wants you to correct it.  

Are you neglecting your responsibilities to your family so that you can pursue pleasure?  Do the right thing from here on out.  

Never get comfortable in sin or on a wrong path.  God will help you make it right if you ask for wisdom and are willing to obey.

            
James 1:5 says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.” 

            
Lately, a particular part of that verse has jumped out at me, one that I never really noticed before: “without finding fault.”  Somehow, I always missed that part, but once I noticed it, I was intrigued.  To me, it says not only that God gives wisdom, but that no matter what kind of mess we got ourselves into, God will help us get out ... without condemnation, without rubbing our noses in it.  He will not smugly say, “I told you so” or hold back His help just to punish us further.  That kind of stuff is from the enemy.  But God gives wisdom when we ask, without overemphasizing the fact that we got ourselves into this mess.  He just wants to help us get out of it, to make things right again.  That should be comforting to all of us.     

#21.  Will He take me somewhere I don’t want to go or make me follow His Will if I don’t want to? 

            
Yes and no.  

Yes, He did drag Jonah to Nineveh.  But I don’t think He generally sends along “big fishes” to drag us, kicking and screaming, to places we don’t want to go.  I believe that His typical way is not “a big fish,” but to pursue, challenge, call, and convict us.  He will knock on the doors of our hearts and ask us to go with Him.  And when He does call us to something we don’t like, if we will remain in Him, be obedient, and focus on Him and His glory, our feelings will eventually get in line.  But He does allow us to rebel and to be hard-hearted, if we choose.  And I think it breaks His heart and grieves Him when we do.  He wants so much more for us than we want for ourselves. 
          
I do think that He looks for hearts that are sensitive to the Spirit, that are willing to obey, to pray, to see needs, and do something about them.  And He will take anyone who wants to be of use to Him and use them for His goals and His glory.  I believe that there are many needs that go unmet and many of His plans and desires that don’t get done, because we shake off any responsibility that we might feel with “God will do whatever He wants.”  

No!  I believe that God has decided to get His Will done through mankind, in cooperation with us, through our obedience.  But if we choose to disobey, His Will won't get done by us and we will miss out on being part of it.  But eventually, He'll find someone else who is willing to obey, and they will get the blessings that come with obedience.

God calls, guides, and convicts, but He leaves it up to man to respond and to get His Will done on earth. 

            
There are several examples in the Bible that show us that God calls, but we have to respond.  

Exodus 3 tells us about Moses and the burning bush.  When Moses saw that the bush wasn’t burning up, he decided to go closer and check it out.  Verse 4 says, “When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, ‘Moses!  Moses!’“

            
If God had wanted Moses’ help, He could have just appear in the sky and said, “Hey, Moses, I have a job for you”.  

But that’s not what He did.  He waited to call him until He saw that Moses went to look at the bush.  Why?  I think it’s because He waits for our response, to see if we will acknowledge Him or not.  He doesn’t call to those who are uninterested and just walk on by.  

            
Same thing with Samuel.  In 1 Samuel 3, we read how the Lord called out to Samuel three times one night.  And three times, Samuel went to see if Eli called him.  Eli told Samuel that if it happened again, he should say, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” (1 Samuel 3:9)  And the fourth time that the Lord called to Samuel, he responded as Eli told him to.  And then the Lord gave him His message. 

            
I used to wonder why God didn’t just start out saying, “Hey, Samuel!  It’s Me, God.  I have a message for you.”  Why not just say what He wanted to say, instead of making Samuel run all over trying to figure out what was going on?  And this is what really convinced me that God calls to us but He waits to speak until He sees if we are listening to Him or not.  He doesn’t force His messages on us, but waits until we show our willingness by responding to His call.

            
Also, in Isaiah 6, we see that Isaiah has a vision where he sees the Lord sitting on His throne, and the angels all around Him.  As he’s standing there (after freaking out about his sinful state, “Woe to me! ...  I am ruined!  For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”), he overhears the Lord say, “Whom shall I send?  And who will go for us?”

              
Isaiah responds with that famous line, “Here I am.  Send me!”

            
Now, since Isaiah was just standing there, eavesdropping on the heavenly conversation, God could have just said, “Hey, you over there?  Come here and make yourself of some use!”  But He didn’t.  He mentioned a need for someone to “go” ... and He allowed Isaiah to offer or not.   

            
And I think that this is what He does with us today.  He places the calls and needs before us and He knocks on the door of our hearts, but it’s up to us to listen, respond, and open the door.  He doesn’t force His way in or His ways on us.  He looks for those who are willing.

How many of us miss our “burning bushes” because we don’t make the time or effort to notice?  How many of us don’t respond to Him when He calls?  How many of us overhear God’s need for someone to do something for Him, and yet we look down at the ground and pretend we didn’t hear anything?  How many of us think God's gonna do what God's gonna do and there's nothing I can do about it?  

And then we wonder where God is and why the earth is in such a mess!   

For the posts in this series, see the "Understanding God's Will" label in the sidebar (or find the original series, without the Calvinism info, by clicking here).