Askin' God

I love a story that a pastor I like told before about his conversation with a man in another religion with a different concept of God. He told the man about how awesome it is to just have this close connection with God, and that when he talks to God, God listens to him. He asked the man if he had the same experience with his god, and the man said yes. This completely baffled the pastor and really bothered him. About 5 minutes later when the conversation had drifted into something else, the man fessed up and admitted that he was lying. He didn't know what that was like.

That got me to thinking this morning. Do I believe like that? I ask God for stuff, and he does answer. But I still pray in that "safe" way and I still talk to people in that "safe" way, where I know God CAN answer someone's prayer, but I don't necessarily believe that he WILL. I'm still detached and don't have that same kind of confidence and closeness of just going "hey Dad, would you ". And that bothers me, because time and time again I have seen God answer my prayers.

God reminded me of the story with the possessed boy that Jesus healed. The boy's father told Jesus "If you can do anything, pelase help us." What did Jesus say? "IF you can?! Everything is possible for one who believes!" And the boy's dad said "I do believe! Help me overcome my unbelief!"

And that was my prayer this morning on the way to work -- "Dad, help my overcome my unbelief! Help me to have that closeness and that trust where when I pray I really do believe you're going to answer." He say "try me". Now I know the Bible says you don't test the Lord, so if that was in my head, it was in my head, but I did it anyway. I said "Well, I really like this one song and haven't heard it for a while. Can I hear on the way to work?"

So the radio station plays a few other songs I like and then the hosts start talking, which I never particularly care to listen to, so I switched stations. I was listening to this guy talk about his imperfections and tell a story about how he ate the whole pie and hid it from his wife or something. It was quite entertaining. Had all the station not gotten all staticy, I wouldn't have switched back.

When I did, I heard the last minute of the song I asked for. I couldn't help but just laugh and laugh, and you know what God said to me? "See, and you almost missed it because you were listening to a guy talk about pie!"

God is faithful in the big things and in the little things. Ask him to increase your faith, and he will -- but you have to be talking to the right God.

Have a great day all.