“You do not have because you do not ask God.”
We’ve all heard this verse spoken many times
this summer, and in many ways for me it has hit home as I’ve realized, “wow, I
really tend to give up before even asking God for what I need!” But could it really be true that all we need
to do it ask? In Luke 18 Jesus answers that question:
"Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they
should always pray and not give up. He said: “In
a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people
thought. And there was a widow in that town
who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’
“For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even
though I don’t fear God or care what people think, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see
that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’”
And the Lord said, “Listen to
what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice
for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting
them off? I tell you, he will see that they
get justice, and quickly."
Look at what Jesus is telling us! If a godless, stingy judge would give a woman what she wanted simply because she asked over and over, how much more will our righteous, extremely loving and compassionate father do the same and so much more for us! Jesus wants to answer our prayers, but he wants us to ask him, and ask him with faith. He also says that “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” I wonder how much we truly believe that, though, as we bring our prayers to God day to day.
This past semester I struggled quite a bit with feeling overwhelmed by all of the huge needs I had in my life that I felt would never be met. As I shared this with one of my close friends, she challenged me to do something that had proved to be very encouraging and powerful in her life. She challenged me to start what is called an Impossible List where I make a list of all of the things that I view as impossible and pray about them daily for six months. So that’s what I did; last March I made a list of about 25 things that I desperately wanted to see happen in my life including my mom coming to know Jesus, my support being raised and my future career made clear. One thing on the list was that a friend of mine would come to Cru. On one of the last weeks he finally came! Another thing was that my support would all be raised, and God brought in even more than I needed!
Another even more impactful experience occurred less than a month after I began praying for the things on my impossible list. I had been praying for direction in my career and life path, but I was pretty sure that Speech Therapy was where I was heading. One Tuesday night I was sitting in the study lounge working on a Sociology project at 2:30 in the morning, which is typical for me because I save everything for the night before, including this. Anyways, I was sitting there happily plugging away when I an idea suddenly came to my mind: “What if I went into fashion design (What?!) and used it as a ministry?” My thoughts wrestled with each other. “Umm God, no, that’s vain, isn’t it? Don’t I need to go into something where I can help people?” “Well what if I was able to have a business where people in impoverished countries could use their natural resources as a way to provide jobs and reach them with the gospel? And what if half of all the profits I make went back to missions as well??” At this point I was feeling almost embarrassed for having such a dream. “People will laugh at me. There is no way that I am adequate to do something that huge.” “Well, God says that His power is made perfect in weakness! It doesn’t matter what I can do, it only matters what God can do through me!” These were the thoughts I wrestled with for a couple of sleepless nights. I kept pouring my heart out to God and telling Him that if this was of me that He could take it away because I definitely just wanted to do His will and not my own. This idea has not for one second gone away and now I truly believe that this is the direction that God is leading me! This also means that I will have to transfer schools, and though this was at first a heartbreaking thought to me, through continued pray the Lord has changed my heart in this as well. Though I don’t even know which school I am going to be transferring to or where I’ll go after that, I know that God knows and I am so excited and ready to followed his plan for my life!
And these are just a few examples of what God has done through my Impossible List. So I challenge you to do the same. Open up your journal and write out everything that you really want to happen. Ask God every day for 6 months and keep track of how he’s working. I can promise you that Christ will show up because “Nothing is impossible with God.”
