Have you ever prayed for God's help? I think most of us have. Have you ever prayed asking for something? I think most of us have. Have you ever prayed to God giving him explicit instructions and details of how to solve your problem? I bet you did not get what you asked for. Why? God does not work that way.
Have you ever prayed for God to save you from a particular situation? Did he respond? From my own experience and from what I have read in the Holy Bible, God usually does not come down out of the sky to save us, and most of the time God’s help does not come quickly.
Most of the time, God’s help is in the warning. God has sent angels from time to time to warn people of a particular situation or to warn people to not do something or to warn people to not go to a particular place. Search your heart and ask yourself if you were warned. Sometimes a warning is verbal but sometimes the Holy Spirit gives us an uneasy feeling as a situation begins to reveal itself, that we really should not be there. Now, if you were warned, it is less likely that God is going to save you from that situation, but even so I would pray and pray and pray for help from God.
Remember that you cannot dictate or give instruction to God. I pray for Christ Jesus to help me or solve my problems and I find that Christ Jesus is so very creative and awesome and many times the solution to the problem is something I had not even considered.
When people were so evil that God was sorry that he ever created them, God made a flood. Only because he felt that Noah was loyal to him did he lead Noah to build the ark. It rained for 40 days and 40 nights as God flooded the earth. Not a quick solution.
When there was drought in the land and Abraham sent his sons to Egypt to buy grain and corn, they never thought they would end up living there. But after finding Joseph, the entire family moved to Egypt and then ended up in slavery. When they prayed to God for help, after many years God responded by having a tiny baby named Moses float in a basket, found by a princess who took Moses to raise him as her own son and after Moses grew to be a man, God led Moses to lead the people out of Egypt. Not a quick solution to the problem, but it worked.
If you read the Holy Bible, you will find other examples of God’s help that is evident after several years, not days, not hours. Notice that in order to find a way to grant us salvation from hell and death, Creator God send Christ Jesus to be born as a tiny baby and grow into a man and then through his terrible death and his awesome resurrection, we have the ability to believe on Christ Jesus and have salvation. Not a quick solution to the problem, but it worked.
God has awesome and wondrous power and strength and yet it is restrained. In all of the situations that I am aware of where people prayed for God’s help and help from God was granted, action was still required of the people. God is completely capable of doing for us and is completely capable of every imaginable miracle, but God usually does not work that way. God uses the actions of people. God works all things for good. But action is required of us.
Have you ever worked in a place where someone did not follow policy or procedure? You found the situation and perhaps even fixed or resolved the problem for them, but as long as you fixed the problem for them, they never learned the right way. They never learned to follow procedure until you did not fix the problem for them, and usually they did not learn from their mistakes until they were required to fix their own problems for themselves. Action is required of us.
When Daniel was thrown into the lion’s den, he prayed to God for help. God could have translated him out of there. There are examples in the Holy Bible were people were translated from one place to another, but God did not do that. God sent peace to the lion so Daniel was not eaten. When Daniel was in a pit of fire, Daniel was not removed from the fire, but instead Christ Jesus was with him and Daniel was not harmed. Why would God do that? While Daniel could have been angry for being in that situation in the first place, he should always remember that Christ Jesus was with him. I feel that if Daniel had just disappeared that the king would have believed that Daniel was consumed by the fire, and there would not have been a testimony to the unbeliever. The fact that Daniel survived each of the circumstances that the king placed him in is testimony to the strength of God.
The Holy Bible does say that if we keep all of God’s commandments and his statutes, that God does bless us for our righteousness (Deuteronomy 28). The Holy Bible also says that as long as I abide in the Lord and his words abide in me, I can ask of God and he will give it to me.
John 15:7
If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
What an awesome promise from God! But let’s remember that if we dwell or abide in the Lord and his words abide in us, then we would not ask for any unrighteous or ungodly thing. We would not likely ask for a lot of material things and we would not ask for bad things. We would have to pray and request for good things, and then wait on the Lord. As we wait on the Lord, we need to remember that many times God provides the way or the opportunity to have what we want but it might require effort on our behalf. We also have to remember that our request might be denied if it is not best for us or if our request was not of a pure heart or it might feel like our request was denied if God does not respond immediately. God has his own timing.
As we live our day to day lives, we need to always pray. We are supposed to pray without ceasing. While Daniel certainly did abide in the Lord and Daniel did hold all of the Lord Creator God’s words in his heart, he still ended up in the lion’s den and in a pit of fire, and praise the Lord God that he survived all of it, probably because he did abide in the Lord.
Life does not always work as smoothing as we would like, but sometimes God has purpose in bad things. The king did not believe in Daniel’s God prior to Daniel’s experiences, but I believe he grew to believe in God after Daniels experiences. So sometimes we just have to have faith and know that the Lord God is with us as long as we abide in him and keep his commandments and know that he is God. We might not know why something has happened until the end, but we have to stay true to the Lord.
In the name of Christ Jesus, I pray and request that Christ Jesus and Creator God be with us and help us as we try to live on this earth and help us through difficult times and help make the difficult times less difficult. Please show the unbelievers that you are real and please help those that believe in Christ Jesus to have peace in God. Help all of us to live in peace and help those that are frustrated because they did not get what they want to understand why so they can improve themselves and their hearts for God. I pray this request in Christ Jesus of Nazareth. Amen.
