Suppose there was a boy named chad. Chad lived in rural area at least an hour
from the nearest city. Chad loved
baseball. He would dream day and night
of playing in the Major Leagues one day.
He knew that one day he would indeed play there and he believed that by
his dedication, hard work, practice, and continual training, he would be
noticed by the right scouts. Chad
prayed about it, worked hard, believing that he was going to make it. He worked hard at practice and in
school. He was going to excel for he
had put his mind to it.
Over time, he excelled greatly in both academics and in his
athletic abilities. He knew that
despite what others said, he would be seen and recruited for a Major League
team. He prayed about it, he
believed, and he was confident.
However, years later, he still had not been recruited as he had expected
and his anticipation was conflicted.
What he had hoped for, prayed for, believed for, expected with
confidence for, did not happen.
- - -
Not everything we believe for will happen in accordance to our own will and plan. How we see things and how we perceive them,
is not how they always happen. In fact,
I would be tempted to argue that, more often then not do our plans not go as we
intend them to. Then what? What do we do next? Where do we turn? How will we respond?
Just over seven weeks ago my mom was diagnosed with cancer,
and through tests and scans over the following weeks we saw that it was stage
IV cancer in seven or eight different organs and bones, likely starting in the
lungs. With cancer growing in her
lungs, back, spleen, liver, hips, ribs, and more areas, she had little appeared
hope of ever being free from cancer.
The cancer in her back was so progressed and spread out that vertebrae
would crack and break just from everyday life – which wasn’t much for her at
that point. As her health declined more
and more, and doctors gave reports that didn’t sound good, there seemed to be
no way that she would ever recover. So
we prayed.
During this time, I personally, started a journey with God
believing for the impossible. A journey
of faith. God had been taking me
through many such little journeys up until this point, challenging me in my
faith and drawing me closer to Him, but they were nothing like this. Now I was challenged by so many words that
the Bible seems to boldly state – verses, passages, statements, and songs that
suddenly stood out a lot more. I took my
time with God, digging deeper into Him and who He is and what He says. I learned that the Word of God, the Bible, is
full of verses that tell us God is faithful, and His word will never fail
(Isaiah 45:19d; Isaiah 45:23b; Proverbs 30:5a).
The showed me that All that He says will come to pass and everything He
does is worthy of our trust (Psalm 33:4).
So with those, and many, many others, I started believing for healing
for my mom. I asked God for an increase
in excitement and expectation for this, and He granted it. I was so excited to see what He was going to
do, and how He would do it. I prayed by
myself, I prayed with others, I brought others into this as well, praying and
believing for healing for my mom. All
throughout the Bible, it seems, God’s breathed word says to ask and keep on
asking, to believe and not doubt even one bit, and to expect and believe that I
have already received what I have asked for.
So I did just that. I believed,
asked, and expected. Each time a doctor
would give a worse report or my mom would slip deeper into health issues, I
would take it to God and believe it was providing a greater contrast for His
glory to shine through.
And then she died.
Like the fictional story of Chad earlier, things did not go
as planned. In fact, things did not go
as I had prayed for, believed for, and expected for. Why?
What do I do now? What happens
next? How will I respond? God does not guarantee an easy and smooth
life. In fact He says nearly just the
opposite. He says that we will have
trials and tribulations and things will not go as we plan for them, but that
through them all He is still good. He
has promised us His peace (Philippians 4:6-9), which is far greater than we can
fathom or understand. Though God loves
to give good gifts to us, God is not here to
serve us.
Wait, but God said, “ask and you shall receive” and I didn’t
receive even though I asked…. One, I
don’t know the full reason why – I am not God, nor do I claim to know and
understand all that God knows and understands.
And two, though it might not seem like it, the story is not over yet….
Her death did throw me off a bit, it wasn’t by much. I knew that it was just as easy for God to
heal a terminally ill person as it was for Him to heal and raise her from the
dead. So I prayed, believed, and
expected that my mom would be raised from the dead.
A week and a half later, she still hasn’t been raised from
the dead here on earth – to the best of my knowledge at least. But that is not the end of the story. God is still a good God, and who He is, is
not changed by what does or doesn’t happen here on earth. My faith still stands. God asks us to stand and ask, seek, and
knock; He asks us to pray, believe without any
doubt, and to fully expect what we ask for.
He asks us to do these things and then trust the rest to Him. If He chooses to do what we ask for,
Yeah!!! If not, still Yeah!!! His name
will be glorified. I do not know the
why’s or why not’s all the time, but I know God is a good God and His way is
unchanging and He is perfect in all that He does. What He has planned will come to pass (Isaiah
46:10b; Psalm 33:11; Luke 1:37).
Okay, so things did not happen the way I had planned,
prayed, believed and expected. That
doesn’t mean that God doesn’t answer my prayers. It just means that this time it didn’t happen
like I thought it would. And it may not
for the next ten or twenty or fifty or a hundred times, but I believe that God
still asks us to ask, believe, and expect; to live with anticipation and faith that
what we have asked will, and has already, happened.
Yes mom still died, but that doesn’t mean I need to weaver
in my faith and trust in God. Regardless
of if my mom died or not, He is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews
13:8). Though it was challenging to see
my mom die and not be supernaturally healed, I can still ask, believe and be
expectant for more amazing miracles in the future.
God is a Good God!!! (Psalm 100:5; Psalm 34:8; Psalm 86:5;
Psalm 138; Psalm 34; Psalm 145; Psalm 92; Psalm 111; Psalm 66; Nahum 1:7; James
1:17; 1 John 1:5; Luke 18:19; Mark 10:18; Matthew 19:17; Psalm 107:1; Romans
12:2; Isaiah 55:8-9)
