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If you could ask Jesus to do one thing for you knowing He would oblige what would you request of Him? Would your request be in line with who Jesus is or would it be in line with His being what you want Him to be? Do we see Jesus as our Lord and Savior or do we view Him as one who is only supposed to grant us Divine favor?
Abraham Lincoln reportedly once said, "I have three English walnuts and both my sons each want two of them. In every realm, that's the major problem in the world today." I interpret Lincoln's remarks to mean many people want what they cannot have and are not willing to settle for what they can have. Lincoln's remarks make me wonder about what we can and should expect from God and what requests of ours may be inappropriate.
I think it is possible we may have misinterpreted a portion of the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 7:7-11 Jesus says, "Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks, receives and everyone who searches, finds and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened." Taken literally and out of context this passage easily says I can ask for anything I want and it will be given to me.
What Jesus is talking about here is our asking for forgiveness, for a real relationship with Him and for entrance into and participation in the Kingdom of God. It is what the Prodigal son hopes to ask for and receive from his father when he returns home. Before he even asks the father not only gives him what he desires but so much more. He gives him forgiveness, blessing, a home, a sense of belonging and a loving relationship. The son's attitude has changed 180 degrees from earlier when he demanded his share of the inheritance.
Kathleen Norris writes in her book Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith (New York: Riverhead, 1998), pp. 60-61, "I have learned that prayer is not asking for what you think you want but asking to be changed in ways you can't imagine. To be made more grateful, more able to see the good in what you have been given instead of always grieving for what might have been. People who are in a habit of praying — and they include the mystics of the Christian tradition — know that when a prayer is answered, it is never in a way that you expect .... No wonder we have difficulty with prayer, for the best "how-to" is from Psalm 46, "be still and know that I am God."
The primary characters in our Scriptures for today are anything but still. We first look at Job. He was a good man of faith. For no apparent reason everything in his life suddenly started going badly. He lost almost everyone and everything including his health.
He turned down advice from his friends and his wife. He continued to praise God. But after a time even his patience faded and he wanted and even demanded from God an explanation. Many of us get to this point without nearly as much happening to us. "Where are you, God? Why is this happening to me? Why aren't you answering my prayers? Am I not important to you? Do you even exist? Are you really loving and powerful and knowing? Do you care about me?" How many of us have asked God these questions and ones like them?
Ninety percent of Job is spent creating this scene. Then in Chapter 38 God finally speaks. For two chapters God responds and many of us may be surprised with the answer and not even like it. I can summarize the response in a few words. God says to Job, "Who do you think you are? What have you ever done that gives you the idea you can demand explanations of me? Where were you when I created the world?"
This doesn't sound like the loving God we want taking care of us, does it? Every once in a while we need to have things put in proper perspective. God has never said, "You get to have what you want whenever you want it."
That's what was going on in the minds of James, John and the other disciples. Ignoring all that Jesus was attempting to tell and teach them, the disciples were hotly pursuing their own narrow agendas. Jesus had been saying He had to be killed. He had been saying He and His disciples had to be servants before they could be leaders and that the first would be last and the last, first.
The disciples were not interested in servanthood or spiritual discipline. They were not interested in giving to others. No, all of them, not only James and John, were only interested in what was in it for them. They argued about who was the greatest in their group. Jesus' response was to wash their feet, an act of a servant.
James and John asked to sit at the seats of honor in Christ's Kingdom. Keep in mind Jesus was hung between two thieves. One of them acted like the disciples. The other one acted like the disciples were supposed to act. Jesus promised both they would be with Him in paradise.
Sometimes it is easy to get a little self-centered. Things are not going well and we expect they should be a whole lot better all at once. Or, everything is going very well and we think we really are special and entitled so we get a little more demanding.
In God's Kingdom, God is the true center of our attention because we know God is deserving of our love and obedience. Jesus once said we are no longer His slaves but His friends. Friends do loving things for each other because they want to do them not because they have to do them.
Today, perhaps more than ever, Jesus needs us to be friends with Him and each other. We are not to lord it over one another; we are to help each other be part of the Kingdom of God. I would like to close with this old story about loving and helping:
Two men survive a plane crash and are stranded on a remote island. The first man says, "Don't worry, I'm a millionaire." "What good is that for us in this situation?" The second man responded. "Well," said the first man, "I tithe and I know my pastor will come looking for me!" It doesn't matter to me what your financial status happens to be or what you may possess. If you are lost, whether you know it or not, I will be looking for you.
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