A Year-Long Exploration of the Sermon on the Mount: Week 28

Chapter 28 – The Father Knows

 

God knows what we want and what our is path is, so why do we bother with prayer? Why do we bother asking God for things?

 

I have an issue with the belief that God has created a path for us when we were born and there’s nothing we can do about it. If that were the case, wouldn’t life be so much easier? If our lives are already laid out, then explain to me the gut-wrenching feeling of anxiety that I experience on almost a daily basis. Or the panic attacks that some of us go through. Or the suddenness of illness and death that brings on debilitating grief.

 

“God knows” doesn’t mean that our lives are predetermined. God gave humanity free will which means we make choices every day about how our lives are going to play out. The result is that we are often praying to God for surface things, but God knows what’s deep down in our hearts, and God walks with us through our lives, answering our heart-felt prayers each and every day.

 

Yes, I do believe that God answers our prayers. It’s just that sometimes those answers come in unexpected ways, or simply not in exactly in the way we wanted. God answered my prayers regarding my call, but it has come with it much unexpected hardship, pain, and grief that I now have to figure out how to process. You can’t tell me that this was God’s plan for me? But I can take to heart that God stands by me through it all.

 

Finally, in our prayers, we can’t forget to thank God! After reading what I just wrote, how can I possible ask you to thank God? It is definitely a step that we often forget. God gave us all of creation, our lives, and everything we find on our path. The happy and the sad, the ups and the down, everything from birth until death. We pray to God asking for things but often forget to thank God for it all.

 

God knows us to our core. God loves us from birth until death. Thank you God for it all.