“Be of good courage, and let us be courageous for our people, and for the cities of our God, and may the LORD do what seems good to him." --2 Samuel 10:12
These words were spoken from Joab to his brother when they were about to go into battle with the Syrians and Ammonites. I heard this verse referenced in the sermon clip that I posted last week from John Piper titled “Where are the Faithful”. The reason it stuck out to me is that I have been thinking a lot about the prayers that I pray and also thinking about the prayers that others ask me to pray. I just feel like many of the prayers that are offered are wanting God to line his will up with what we pray instead of our prayers lining up with God’s will. Even when I pray, “God, let your will be done!” I really only mean, let your will be done if you are going to do what I want you to do.
I think these words from Joab reveal the attitude we should have. “May the LORD do what seems good to him.” He doesn’t say, “Brother lets pray that God will protect our lives and keep us safe during this battle.” “Let the LORD do what seems good to him!” Do you feel comfortable praying this when things are going completely wrong? “God, I am at one of my lowest points in life. Do what seems good to you!”
I don’t! I want to, but to be honest I don’t feel comfortable with that. But shouldn’t that be our hearts? No matter what happens, we should be so focused on the will of the Father and bringing glory to Him, that we can say, “Do whatever pleases you!”
We tend to believe that our plans are better than God's plans. I think this attitude boils down to our all being an idolatrous people. Essentially, we worship ourselves. We are self-centered and we not only think our plans are better than God's, we think we deserve whatever our heart pleases. In reality, we all deserve death because of our rebellion against the living God. Every day God extends to us is only because He is unbelievably merciful...not because we deserve anything.
ReplyDeleteOver the past year, God has been showing me that my prayer needs to be one of thanksgiving for all that the Creator has done and for the great mercy He has extended to me. And that my prayer should also be for God to please increase my faith in Him that I might die to myself and live for Christ.
Obviously, this is not an overnight process or even a year-long process. This is a life-long process of God refining us more into His image.