14th Sunday after Pentecost 2.9.07 Trust
Why does God want us to ask Him for things, when He already knows what we need?
His will is that we ask. For example supposing He wants to send rain upon us. We pray for rain, but we might say, well, if He wants to make it rain He can, so what’s the point of asking Him?
He wills us to ask for the rain and then to send the rain. The ‘asking’ is important to Him as it shows we have come to recognize our dependence on Him, and also our power to make things happen in union with Him.
Our Lord points out that we are the only creatures that disobey the Creator! The birds and the flowers just go about their business and receive what they need, while we rage and struggle against the One who provides everything.
If we would obey, trust, come into alignment with the will of God things would flow much more smoothly.
We can learn another lesson from the birds, that is how they fly. The principle of flying is that if the object keeps moving enough the air currents will keep it airborne. A very heavy plane can fly if it keeps moving, but it cannot park in mid-air.
St Peter could walk on water as long as he wasn’t thinking about it, but as soon as he stopped to think he started to sink.
The lesson for us: Keep moving, keep our eyes and hearts fixed on God and let Him do the thinking.
Our role is to trust Him and do what He says. Yes, we can think but only in union with Him not against Him.
He wants us to exercise our creative intelligence – that’s why He put it there – and He wants us to exercise our free will – because it is all the more to His glory and our happiness if we do this in union with Him.
Everything that is wrong with the world is because there is division between the creature and the Creator.
We must reconcile this division, and learn to go with His creative flow. The difference will astound us.
So Jesus tells us to ask for what we need and we shall receive it. He also tells us to seek first the kingdom and all else will be given to us.
Not contradictory advice, but when we ask for individual things it must be in the context of the kingdom, guided by God’s overall will.
We want what He wants. We do not understand every detail of our lives and where we fit in with God’s plans – as regards other people or the longer term of the future. He may, for example, require us to make some sacrifice for the good of others, so in that case He may not give us every physical comfort we might prefer, but His will is for good in a wider sense.
We can come to see this and be comfortable with His will, less selfish in our outlook.
Ultimately we come to be satisfied with His will, not seeing it as a threat to our own happiness but the very source of our happiness. God is on our side. We are a bit afraid of His will because it might upset our plans, but if so only to give us something better.
When we trust Him that much we will obey His every wish and the world will have been restored because like all the rest of creation we will obey.
