Trust God Anyway

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, October 11, 2020.  The Bible verses used are Matthew 7:7-12.

            Do you believe God always do what we’d like God to do?

            I suspect for all of us, the answer is no.  That’s true for a few reasons, but the biggest one is probably our own experience.  We’ve all had times when we wanted God to do things, and God did not do them.  Now, sometimes, after time goes by and we can look back on a situation, we feel very fortunate that God did not do what we wanted.  We can see now that God’s plan was better than ours.  And we thank God that God did not give us what we thought we wanted.

            But there are other times when we don’t understand why God did not do what we wanted.  My guess is that we’ve all had that experience.  We’ve prayed for the healing of a loved one, for example, and they were not healed, at least not in this life.  We’ve prayed for God to help us get out of a difficult situation, and God left us in the situation.  How many of us have prayed for an end to the coronavirus, and so far, at least, there is no end in sight?

            We don’t know why.  All we can do is hold onto our faith and continue to trust.  We trust that God must have some reason for not doing what we wanted.  We trust that God knows better than we do.  We trust that God has plans and purposes we know nothing about.  We trust that God can see farther into the future than we can.  We trust that, as it says in Isaiah chapter fifty-five, God’s ways are higher than our ways and God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts.  And we trust that God loves us, and so God must have a better plan in mind for us than the plans we have for ourselves, even if we have no clue what that plan is.

            But the thing is, what, then, do we do with our Bible reading for today?  Because Jesus seems to say that God will do what we want God to do.  Jesus says, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”  And then, Jesus says, “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”

            We know that God does not always do what we want God to do.  But as Christians, we also know that Jesus’ words cannot be wrong.  So, what does Jesus mean?  What’s Jesus talking about?

            Well, first, Jesus says that if we want God to do something, we have to take some action, right?  Jesus says that if we want something to be given to us, we need to ask.  If we want to find something, we need to seek it.  If we want the door to be opened to us, we need to knock.  

            In other words, God does not just drop things into our laps.  God is willing to help us.  God wants to help us.  But God waits to be asked.  God waits for us to actively seek God’s goodness.  God does not open doors for us until we ask that they be opened.            

            So that’s one thing, and it’s an important thing.  Because sometimes our “requests” are really demands, right?  We do not ask humbly.  We do not ask recognizing how much higher and greater God’s ways are than our own.  Instead, we act as if we believe God owes it to us to do things for us.  We act as if God would not know what to do if we did not tell Him, and if God does not do what we tell Him, then there must be something wrong with God.

            Now, when you put it that way, it sounds kind of silly.  But if we’re honest with ourselves, I suspect some of us have done that.  I know I have.  And I doubt I’m the only one.

            Not only that, but Jesus’ statement implies that, if we want God to help us, we need to do our part.  Whatever we want God to give us, we need to actually seek it.  Whatever door we want God to open for us, we need to actively knock on it.  If we just sit back and do nothing, waiting for God to do it all, we are likely to be disappointed.  God will do God’s part.  But first, you and I need to do our part.

            But, we say, we’ve done all that.  We’ve asked humbly.  We’ve sought what we want god to do.  We knocked on the door.  We’ve done our part.  And--God did not do God’s part.  In fact, it looks to us like God has not done anything.

            Well, let’s look a little farther.  Jesus uses a couple of examples of how human parents act.  He says, “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?”  Then he says, “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”

 Jesus says God will give good gifts to those who ask him.  But here’s the thing:  Is everything we ask God to give us really a good gift?

We may believe it is.  We may believe we’re acting completely selflessly.  We may believe that what we ask would be best for everyone concerned.  We may believe there is downside to it whatsoever for anyone.  But that does not mean that what we believe is true.

Let’s look a little more closely at those good gifts that human parents give.  Those of you who’ve had children, let me ask you:  do you, or did you, give your kids everything they wanted, just because they asked for it?  And if you don’t have children, think of your own childhood.  Did your parents give you everything you wanted, just because you asked for it?

I’m pretty sure the answer for everyone here is no.  Human parents don’t give their children everything they ask for just because they ask for it.  And the reason human parents don’t give their children everything they ask for is because they love their children.  And human parents know that sometimes, the things their children ask for are not, in fact, good things.

The children may believe that they are.  The children may not think of themselves as being selfish at all.  In fact, sometimes they could probably give you a whole list of reasons why they should get what they’re asking for.  They may not be able to see any downside to it at all.

But you can.  Because human parents know better than their children.  Human parents know that it’s more important to give their children what they need than it is to give them what they want.  To use Jesus’ words, human parents will give their children bread even if they’ve asked for a stone.  They’ll give their children a fish even if they’ve asked for a snake.  The children might not see anything wrong with what they’ve asked for, but their parents do.  And so, parents will give their children good gifts, even if their children don’t see them as good gifts at the time.

That’s what God does for us.  God gives us the good gifts we need, which may not be the gifts we’ve asked for.  We may believe we’ve asked for something good, but God knows that it’s a snake.  And God won’t give it to us, because God knows it’s not a good gift, no matter how strongly we believe it is.

It’s still hard to understand, though.  We may understand the logic of it, but still.  When you’re loved one is in the hospital and you pray for healing and the healing does not come, it’s hard to understand why that healing would not be a good gift.  When we’re in a really tough situation and we don’t see any way out and God does not help us get out, it’s hard to understand how God helping us out of the situation would not be a good gift.  And it’s certainly hard to understand why God getting rid of the coronavirus would not be a good gift.  None of that makes much sense to us.

And so we end where we began.  Because again, it really comes down to a matter of trust.  Can you and I trust God enough to believe that what we are asking God to give us would not, in fact, be a good gift, even if every bit of our minds and hearts tells us that it would be?  Can you and I trust God enough to believe that, when God does not give us what we ask, it means that God has something better in mind for us, even if we cannot possibly understand what could be better than what we’re asking for?  In short, can we trust God enough to believe that God knows what He’s doing, even when what God is doing--or not doing--makes absolutely no sense to us?

This is where, as they used to say, the rubber meets the road.  This is where we find out whether we really have faith in God, or if we just say we do.  When we cannot understand why God is not doing what we’ve humbly and sincerely asked God to do, when we’ve knocked on the door and it seems like God has slammed it shut, can we continue to have faith anyway?  Can we continue to believe in God’s goodness anyway?  Can we continue to trust in God’s love anyway?

We really cannot know until we’ve been there.  And I know some of us have been there.  And those of us who have not been there yet will be at some point.  It’s just the way life works.

When we are there, may we trust in God’s greatness.  May we trust in God’s goodness.  May we trust in God’s love.  And may we trust that God will give us good gifts, even if we cannot see them as good at the time.  May we continue to trust God.