Just Ask…

Some many people are struggling with some aspect of their life and don’t know what to do about it. They have exhausted the bounds of their human reasoning and as such resign themselves to some difficult fate. Whether it be a physical malady or some grievous mental issue; ongoing relationship problems or just a lack of love; not having enough money to meet their basic needs or lacking the prosperity they desire to live abundantly, all of us have personal situations that we “wish” we could overcome. Most people it seems, and you know it’s true, end up settling for less than they want in life and trudge ahead with a host of unmet needs. After all, in this world, “you can’t always get what you want” or can you? It is neither natural nor normal for people to have unsolved problems, ongoing pain and suffering, mental bondage and torture with a general persistent feeling of malaise based on the futility of not knowing how to overcome some trying and often debilitating part of their lives. Yet with God nothing is impossible and the first step in finding your answers, your solutions is to simply ask God. How many of the challenges that plague the hearts of men could be resolved by asking God for His help. Yet many have not because they ask not. Instead of going directly to the source of life and vitality and love they wallow around in the misty flats circling the same tired philosophies and ideas of men that always end in man’s reasoning and man’s logic. The reality of the situation, your situation, is that you are never going to solve the real life-suckers and chains that have held men down for centuries on your own. Life is spiritual and the root of every difficult challenge you have ever faced is spiritual also. For this reason, in order to finally overcome, you have to seek the source of spiritual life – God. You don’t have to work for it or resolve yourself to be a better person. You don’t have to change your evil ways, which probably aren’t that evil at all, give up something or everything nor discipline yourself to a life of denial of all pleasure and fun. That is what men preach in their futile quest to make their flesh bring forth spiritual fruit, i.e. receive the answers they desperately need. Instead all you need to do, all we need to do, is ask God. Just ask.

Let us reason together for a moment. We have probably all been taught that in order to receive God’s help there is something we must do first. We have to clean up our lives and do good. We have to give to the poor. We have to treat ourselves roughly and put our needs last in favor of something we must by compulsion and guilt do. Then as we evaluate ourselves and our condition we know we don’t measure up so that necessitates working harder, denying more and “suffering” for the Lord. Yet this is not how life with God works. Otherwise God’s ability would depend entirely upon what we do and don’t do. Absent God cleaning us up we aren’t going to get cleaned up. God already knows what stinkers we can be at times and He loves us anyway. As long as God’s involvement in our lives is about us we will never get to the place of believing His promises for our lives or in His ability to do for us what we could not do on our own. Where folks miss it, sometimes for a lifetime, is that God wants to help you more than you can even conceive of. He sees your difficulties, He hears your cries and He knows where you suffer and even more importantly why. He is more willing to answer your heartfelt prayers than you are to pray them. Often the reason our prayers are not answered is because we have too much religion and legalistic requirements floating around in our heads and hearts. We make God too hard as a great man used to say. There is obviously nothing wrong with wanting to please God, but when you are doing it to get something from Him you are on the wrong track. God never asked us to live that way. He knows everything including when we are doing things out of fear. He knows where we have error in our minds and hearts that keep us from Him. He knows where we fall short and why. Getting answers and help from Him is never based on what we do, but rather on what He did and will do for us. When Jesus said to deny yourself he didn’t mean deny yourself as a person. He meant deny this idea, this pervasive evil logic, this Lord of your own life thinking that leaves you empty, unfulfilled and defeated. He knew God was the answer to every question, to every need large and small, to every challenging thing we would ever face. He knew that what God said was true was always true no matter how it looked or what people said. He trusted God, his Father, with his whole heart. And with every difficulty that ever confronted him He talked it over with God first. Just ask.

God is interested in every part of your life. He cares about you, deeply. He wants to give you the answer. Did you know that the answer to every request you make to God that is alignment with His Word, is always yes. It is always yes! If you need His healing His answer is yes. If you need prosperity His answer is yes. If you need to get mental clarity and peace of mind His answer is always yes. Whoever convinced you that His answer might be no; that He may not grant your request because you did such and such twenty years ago; that He is upset with you and your humanity; that you are not worthy or deserving? Those are all lies people believe that stop them from getting the answers they need. When you seek God’s help His answer is yes! When Jesus was on the earth he healed everyone that came to him. Not once did he require people to get better or improve before he would help them. He didn’t check into their background on how they were living or which church they went to first. He healed every person that came to him and he always did the Father’s will. Do you get it? God’s answer is always yes! Just ask Him.

Haven’t you spent enough time in the struggle to stop trying to do it all on your own? Aren’t you weary of living that way? What are you so afraid of? Do you think God’s willingness to help you comes with a price tag that you have to pay? Do you think He is going to ask you to give up the things you enjoy in life? I can assure you that is not how He works. (Trust me – smile) God loves us into making any needed changes in our lives and He does it with tremendous patience. He gives us the freedom to decide without compulsion or fear of consequences from Him. Would you expect anything else from Love? God wants a relationship with you. One based on freewill love, not on fear. He wants you to be yourself with Him, the good, the bad and the ugly. You can talk over anything with Him. He not only hears you but He will answer you. He will begin to teach you what you need to understand and He does it with such love and tenderness you will never be disappointed. He will not judge you because He sees all that is behind your troubles. He knows where you got tripped up. He knows the error you were fed and believed. He knows why you got wrapped up in everything you ever got wrapped up in. He knows and all that He asks is that you go to Him about your difficulties. Talk it over with Him. Give Him a chance to do for you what He wants to do for you. Remember with Him nothing is impossible if you will just ask.

Just some good thoughts…