Occasionally I’ve seen children in a store asking their parent for something. The parent says no, and while some children settle for that, others begin to whine and beg. Sometimes the parent gives in, sometimes not.
Anyone who is a parent has been there. These ‘battles’ are not much fun. For the parent who refuses to give in, they might end with the child pouting and declaring, “You don’t love me” or worse yet, “I hate you.”
I’ve had some battles like that with my heavenly Father. Occasionally He wants me to keep on asking, at least if whatever I’m asking for is a good thing, within His will, and a legitimate prayer request. However, if it is not, and He says no, I’ve the choice to accept His wisdom or begin whining and wondering if He loves me. I might not say I hate Him, but I’m acting as if I do.
That never works. God loves me far more than any earthly father could, but that love means that sometimes He will not give me what I ask for. He is not being “mean” or exercising His control, but knows me well and knows that whatever I’m asking for is not good for me.
James 4:1-3 says, “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”
These verses from James always sounded like a scolding to me, but as I read them again this morning, I hear another tone. I know that selfish prayers do not rate high on God’s ‘I must answer this’ list. He sees how selfishness causes many relationship and other problems. To indulge me only perpetuates my covetous, greedy, me-first tendencies. Saying no is one way to wake me up and make me realize that I am asking God for the wrong things and with the wrong motives.
God shows me what I am like so I can confess these things and be forgiven and cleansed. He is not out to merely rap me on the knuckles, but to change my life, to make me a better person. This is why He says in a few lines later, “Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the Spirit He caused to live in us envies intensely?”
God longs that I love Him, put Him first, trust Him with all things. He knows this is what is best for me and His Spirit, who lives in me, expresses those longings every time I ‘want what I want when I want it.’ That longing, described here as a holy envy for my affections, is a little like the loving mother who hugs her crying child through the supermarket checkout, shielding him from the eye-level displays of candy that he so desperately thinks he needs. She loves her little one and wants the best for him, even if he thinks otherwise.
Scolding words like these from James are sometimes necessary. I’m not always listening to the still, small voice of God’s cautioning rebukes. Sometimes I just want what I want. So when my hands are over my ears, to get my attention He must lovingly pull them away and speak sternly into my face.
Sometimes I act like a child of God. Sometimes I’m just a brat.
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