You don t realize it yet, but in the next 3 minutes you re going to learn why God has not been answering your prayers. Before I get to that, I m going to share with you an experience that I ve had several times in the past and, most recently, this morning. My confession is that this is something that I have done myself.
What I m about to share is something that we have all done at some point in our life and then pondered why the outcome is so different than how we thought God had intended it. So what is the secret to God answering our prayers?
A good friend of mine was sharing about her experience with failing a test necessary to received her teaching credential.
She had taken the test last year and failed. She was devastated, but she picked up her chin and started studying again to take the test this year. She spent hours studying and doing what she felt was needed to ensure that she passed the test.
Then she began telling me about her conversations with her higher power, God, regarding her journey.
She had made several requests to God that if he did not want her to pursue this goal of hers, he should make sure that certain milestones were not met (such as receiving scholarships, early rescheduling, etc.) Yet, everything fell into place.
My friend was clear that God intended her to take *and* pass the test this second time around. She was riding high in faith that she would pass the test. I remember her talking about how positive she was trying to be about the test.
She was trying not to think about the last test. She had asked God for guidance, and it was clear to her that he intended her to pass. She failed the test earlier this week.
Almost everyone has heard of this happening to someone. Or maybe you have experienced this for yourself. You called upon God to give you guidance, and he has given you a path that is as clear as the hand in front of your face.
To my friend, God has shown her exactly what she was supposed to do by supporting her pursuit of her teaching credential exactly as she knew it should happen. Now, she was upset with God for having not protected her interests. After all, she had made the requests of God, and he had put everything in place for her.
I d venture to guess that you ve had this experience yourself.
So, why is it that God can appear to answer our prayers one day and not answer them the next? I know that some of us have it that it is all part of God testing us.
However, that God is testing our faith by baiting us with cheese of our wants being fulfilled, only to take the cheese away at the last minute is a bit obscene. Bait switch, deceit, and lies are very human type games. What is more likely than God playing some faith testing game with us is that we have fooled ourselves into believing that our wants and pursuits are supported by God at all.
We do this by making demands on God like my friend, God, if you really don t want me to pursue this then you should not allow me to receive the scholarships I need.
Many of us have it that we are so important that God is listening and reacting to every request and demand we make of him in the exact way that we want him to. There are a lot of assumptions we are making about our conversations with God:
Don t be offended by any of these three assumptions.
I m not suggesting that God does not listen to us. I m also not suggesting that God doesn t take any action in response to our requests. I personally believe in a higher power that is always listening and responding to everything that everyone thinks, says, or does.
So where does that leave us with the final assumption? The one that God responds and alters the universe in a way that makes sense to us.
As this blog rolls to an end, I invite you to consider that the answer
to the question at hand lies in the realm of responsibility.
We project onto God that which we believe to be what he is revealing to us . Take a moment to soak this up. Put another way, we see the actions unfolding in our life as God s response to the requests we are making of him.
Like my
friend has experienced, God will not make you pass or fail in life. So, then, why do we make God responsible for the outcomes we experience in life? Stay tuned to my blog for more.
Tis the season for some news about Christianity. I was reading an (remember that swindler?) I saw an ad on the side of the page with the headline: Davidic Christianity Christian Polygamy.
The text ad read: Davidic Christianity seeks to fulfill the prophecy of Amos 9: 11-12 by Perhaps it was my red-blooded American curiosity that got me clicking. I mean, David was hooking it up.
Now, typically, I don t blog, bulletin, or otherwise comment on material that I don t want to promote.
After all, all press is good press. On top of this, I suspect that the folks at House of David Ministries paid good money for their ad on CNN. I m now giving them additional value for their spend on CNN.
But the message they are trying to convey is of great importance.
The folks at House of David Ministries claim that they are trying to convey a message of God. Please, by all means, read the article they have crafted about .
This is slick idea! Hell, if God supports polygamy, I m all for it. Any man stupid enough to try to take on fulfilling the needs of more than one woman deserves what he s going to get.
Then again, the Biblical concept of marriage is the transfer of ownership of the bride from her father to her husband. So, I suppose that there s not a whole lot of focus on fulfilling any of her needs when it comes to Biblical marriage.
My personal favorite is the Conclusions section.
Honestly, this is a rather well written article. Yes, it is filled with authentic Biblical gibberish. Yes, it is entirely too long for anyone in their right mind to read in a single sitting.
In fact, I encourage you to read it over several bathroom visits. There are plenty of Bible quotes that truly prove that either (1) polygamy is established through the word of God to be not just acceptable but honorable *OR* (2) parts of the Bible can be used to support any idea someone can come up with.
Read Conclusion #8.
The first 8, please, not the second. At the time I wrote this, there were two 8 s. Will the House of David Ministries change it by the time you read this?
I m not sure. I suppose it depends on how many people waste their time reading my blogs 
The symbolism of this movie is incredible. While cute and innocent, the kiwi is not immune to the trappings of desire and want.
Please watch this Kiwi animation
A few questions are raised by this short film. First, how far is one willing to go in order to have what is wanted in life? Clearly, the has gone beyond what is ordinary in his life in order to achieve a goal.
In fact, a singular goal that he is willing to sacrifice his existence for. A goal that he clearly feels is his innate right as a bird to have but cannot because he does not have the faculties in which to experience this.
The next question is what has it for us to want something so bad that we are willing to sacrifice our existence in order to have it.
Yes, the involves a flightless bird who will stop at nothing in order to have the experience of flying. It is just a bird and just an animation. Yet, we human beings kill ourselves regularly in pursuit of the same i .
Literally, he has sacrificed his life in order to have the experience that he could not have from birth. Yet, he feels strongly enough about this desire to fly that he is willing to kill himself for the experience.
In his pursuit of flight, the kiwi was already dead.
His entire life was spent pursuing something that he felt was his innate right of which he was robbed, having been born a kiwi, a flightless bird. Rather than being happy with what he does actually have in life, he focused on his wants so much that he became blind to the fact that he was ultimately going to kill himself.
None of this makes the kiwi, or humans, in pursuit of an innate desire bad or wrong.
But it does raise the question for me as to where I am killing myself off in my pursuits of my innate desires. This short film is more than just a cute commentary on a flightless bird. Yes, kiwis are cute.
I ve seen them up close and personal. They are adorable birds. However, this animation (cleverly disguised as a cute film) is a powerful representation of just how insane we can be in our pursuit of our innate desires .
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