We all want a life of abundance. Jesus says He wants to provide it. But could we possibly have a wrong understanding of the promise? Have we looked at the promise through “American dream”–tinted glasses? Have we fallen prey to some trap of our own design?
We often pray for safety and comfort. We pray for safe travels. We pray that everyone in our family would be healthy and whole. Our safety and comfort are issues that we feel we want & need. And when we read passages such as Romans 8:28 which states that God works all things together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purposes, we interpret them to be saying: “God will be faithful in making my life good.”
But then sometimes our lives are not so “good” in our eyes. Tragedy comes, accidents happen, life takes a turn for the worse. And if we have banked on the “good life” as we have defined it, we get extremely rattled. We get angry with God. We might even seem to lose our faith for a season. But maybe we should remember that the end of that verse says “and are called according to His purposes.” If we understand that God will be faithful in making things good in relation to bringing glory to His name, then even our death (which seems to NOT be OUR GOOD) can be good when it is done in a way that glorifies His name (as martyrs have done).
Interestingly enough, Jesus didn’t pray for the safety & comfort of His disciples, but rather that His disciples would be kept from the evil one and would stand strong in the face of temptations. He knew that they would not have safety & comfort – in fact it is said that most of Jesus’ disciples died a martyr’s death. And so it wasn’t that he needed to pray for their safety and comfort, but rather to pray for them to be faithful to bring glory to God and advance His kingdom – not only through their lives but through their deaths. What if we began to change our prayers to ask for the things Jesus did for his disciples?
In the movie The End of the Spear, the missionaries were asked if they would use their guns if the tribe attacked them. The statement was – “Son, We can’t shoot them because they do not have Jesus, and we do. So it is OK if we die now, but not OK for them to die without Jesus.” That in no way is comfort or safety, but the deaths of these missionaries was definitely glorifying to God. The sacrifice that the men were willing to give (their lives) for the gospel paired with the love that was shown to the people by the spouses that were left behind – led the Waodani people to believe in Jesus.
If we fall into the trap of American thinking – life should always be pleasant with good things – we hinder ourselves from understanding how life that may be difficult can bring glory to God – and maybe that is the good that we need to understand that Romans 8:28 is discussing.
Paul spoke of his “thorn in the flesh” and asked that it would be removed, but when it wasn’t, Paul indicated that his comfort was less important than God gaining glory through Paul’s weaknesses which would make Paul rely more on God.
So the first thing we need to do is to start getting our minds around the glory of God and then to imitate Jesus’ prayer. We need to pray for God’s glory – even if that might mean the loss of our comfort & safety.
The second imitation we need to have is that we need to pray for one another to be kept from temptation. That is not a prayer we often pray, is it? We pray for each others’ comfort & safety, but very seldom do we pray for each other to be kept from the temptations of the evil one. What kind of difference would that make in our lives if we all began praying that for one another? We see the same statement in the model prayer – Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
In our lives, let’s look for the good that brings God glory more than brings us comfort!