Prayer...

About a week ago I was reading A Man Called Peter by Catherine Marshell, and an excerpt from one of Peter's sermons, "Why Worry", stood out to me. It was an answer to the often asked question, "How much should I do to help God answer my prayers, and how much should I leave to Him?" I thought it was a really good explanation of why sometimes it seems God doesn't answer our prayers. 


"When faced with problems that worry us, we should, by all means, talk them over with the Lord.
We should, because He wants us to, turn the matter over to Him.
But God may insist on bringing up other matters as a prerequisite to His answering our prayers.

If we want to trust God,
   but feel that our faith is hardly strong enough for such a venture, then we can, with every confidence, ask Him to give us the faith too,

for faith is a gift of God. 

What, after all, do I mean, when I speak of taking worries to the Lord and leaving them there?

Let me use the simplest illustration of which i can think.

Suppose a child has a broken toy.

He believes that his father can mend it.

He brings the toy to his father, saying that he himself has tried to fix it and has failed.

He asks his father to do it for him.

The father gladly agrees...

   takes the toy

      and begins to work.

Now obviously, the father can do his work most quickly and easily, if the child makes no attempt to interfere, but simply sits quietly watching.

   or even goes about other business

with never a doubt that the toy is being sucessfully mended.

But what do most of God's children do in such a situation?

Often we stand by, offering a lot of meaningless advice and some rather silly criticism.

We even get a little impatient, because it is taking so long,

   and we try to help

      and get our hands in the Father's way, generally hindering His work. 

Finally, in our desperation, we may even grab the toy out of our Father's hands entirely, saying rather bitterly that we hadn't really thought He could fix it anyway,

   that we had given Him a chance,

       and that He had failed us.

There are times when God asks us to mend some broken relationships,

   to do something to make the way straight before Him.

But never forget that His plans may include simply turning over your problem

   doing nothing else...

       just shutting out all doubt and worry.

This is the kind of solution that God loves because it glorifies Him.

And we are glad to say:

   "I didn't do anything but just believe.

    God did it all.

       Give Him the credit.!"

Why not give Him the chance with your problems?

God can fix it for you.

He is eager to do it."