In wrapping up our summer mens Sunday School class; on the John Ortbert book, “If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat”, our fearless leader Ed asked the following question:
If your God truly is a big God, and you could ask him to do any one thing in your life, what would it be?
I don’t know if any of you do this but I originally started writing this post 3 months ago. It’s been sitting in the purgatory known as ‘Draft Status’ ever since. Maybe I didn’t have time to work on it, or maybe I just didn’t know what I thought of the question at the time and so didn’t feel up to responding to it. I’m still not so sure how to respond to this question. I know that the intent behind posing a question like this was for us (our Men’s study group) to grasp/realize/comprehend that we CAN ask God for anything, so why don’t we?
Of course when first confronted with this question my mind went to the image of the genie coming out of the bottle. Only I don’t get three wishes, I get one; so what will it be? And let’s just say, for the sake of where my own mind went, that what ever we ask for will be granted. Knowing that you are going to get what ever it is that you ask for, and also knowing that God is the genie (shouldn’t that make you take pause in your decision), what do you ask for?
I guess I could be all grandiose and Miss Universe about it and ask God to grant world peace, but I’m a Christian and know that’s not in His plans, so why ask Him to do something that I know He’s not inclined too? So, that line of thinking kind of wipes out a ton of possibilities and leaves me asking what would a righteous request be? Of course being the penultimate of sinners, the devil easily places a little voice in the back of my head that keeps saying, “Who do you think you are to be asking God for anything?”. What to do, what do I do?
Being a Piper-ite I know that what ever I wind up asking for will be a selfish request. So how do I turn a selfish request into something the glorifies my Lord? At this point I’m really hating Ed for posing this question as it’s giving me a headache, and now I remember why I never finished this post. I could ask for wisdom like Solomon. Imagine being able to truly discern the Word of God, how much greater would my/our understanding be!? Or, how about having a faith like that credited to Abraham? And while I believe these are probably what I should I ask for it’s something else all together that keeps coming to the forefront of my thinking.
And no it’s not a desire for wealth, or health, or some other tangible. It’s simply an answer to the question that has always been on my mind… why me, God? Why did you want me? All the times that I turned my back on you, all the times that I cursed your name, all the times that I questioned your existence, why did you call me? And even afterwards, after I came to accept your Son, you knew that I’d fall and falter. That I’d have serious lapses in my faith. That in some ways I’m no better than I was before. So why?
So what would you ask for?
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