We all ask God for things, but God does not always give us what we want. Having wants is not necessarily a bad thing. When what we want is not what we need, we need to trust God more than we know. God may not give us what we want, but He will always give us what we need. We need to learn to pray for God’s will. Begin and end every prayer with the words, “If it is Your will.” Then trust that God knows what we need.
Transcript:
My brothers and sisters, today I want to talk about God in such a way that I pray that we come to a better understanding of the difference between what we want and what we need from God. In this morning’s gospel lesson, we have the widow from Nain. She had lost her only child and Christ comes upon the funeral procession. This is one of the four times that he raised somebody from the dead. And the woman in this funeral procession and all the crowd, everyone is crying and this and that. You can imagine the commotion and the tears. And Christ comes upon this funeral procession and not one person goes up to him.
Not one person says to the woman, “Christ is here. Go talk to him.” Not one person goes up to Christ and says, “God, please, the woman is all alone.” Imagine how alone she must have been for not even one person to intercede on her behalf. So Christ, as I wrote in this morning’s gospel[bulletin], Christ did not wait for her to ask. He immediately goes up to the funeral procession and touches the coffin and he says, “Young man, arise.” And then he gives him to his mother. That was it. Just the touch of Christ, just his words, but his love and his grace. You see, we go through life and we want so many things from God, and you’ve heard me say this before, God is not an ATM in the sky.
He’s not just sitting there waiting for us to list off our demands. I want this, I want this, I want that, I want this. And let’s face it, we all have wants, and having wants by themselves is not a bad thing. We want good health. We want a holy and healthy family. We want a job that we can support our family. These are good things to want. The difficulty comes, my brothers and sisters, when what we want is not necessarily what we need. There comes a time in our life that we must trust that God knows what we need. And he will always give us what we need, whether we ask him for it or not. Sometimes what we need is to learn a little patience or to learn a little humility. And God’s going to say, “Oh, I understand what you want, but what you need is to learn to be patient for those things.”
You’ve heard me say many times, every prayer is answered by God, either with a yes, a no, or some kind of combination of not yet because sometimes what we need from God we don’t fully understand, but we have to trust that God knows better than we know. So I’m always reminding us, when we pray, always ask for God’s will to be done. Always include that in your prayer. Lord, if it is your will, let me find a new job. If it is in your… Not me, by the way, I love my job. I just want you all to know that. I love my job, but I hear that one a lot from people. But to say, “If it is your will,” and trust that God knows what we need. And then our job is to come to terms with God’s answer. See, in this morning’s gospel, it was that he knew that she needed her son and the crowd needed to see his power so they could believe in him.
Maybe we don’t need miracles. Maybe we just want miracles. Have we ever thought about that? We turn to God and we beg him for miracles. Well, that means we already have faith. That means we already have trust and belief in God. I remember, and I think I have shared this story before, I remember when my mother was dying from cancer and every day I prayed to God, “God, if it is your will, heal my mother.” After three years she died, but God still healed her, just not in the way that I wanted, but in the way that she needed. You see, my brothers and sisters, we live in a painful and broken world. There is absolutely no guarantee against pain and sorrow and suffering. No guarantee. It doesn’t matter what other preachers on television tell you, there is no guarantee in life to avoid sorrow and pain and suffering.
So let’s come to terms and trust God. And in our prayers, begin every prayer with, “If it is your will.” And then when the time comes, and trust me, it will come, when God’s will is not our will and what we ask is not what we need, so the answer is going to be no from God, then in those moments, we have to ask God to help us accept his decision. It’s not ours to tell God what to do. He is the creator, we are the created. We owe our lives to God, not the other way around. So embrace this morning’s gospel lesson, my brothers and sisters, not only as an example of God’s power but to remind us that he will always be there in our need and then trust him that he will always give to us what we need and when we need it because he loves us more than we know ourselves how to love. Glory to God for all things.
At that time, Jesus went to a city called Nain, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him. As he drew near to the gate of the city, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow; and a large crowd from the city was with her. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep.” And he came and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” And the dead man sat up, and began to speak. And he gave him to his mother. Fear seized them all; and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has arisen among us!” and “God has visited his people!”
Luke 7.11-16
