If you’re like everyone else who has ever lived on planet earth, you’ve probably experienced some confusion about your life. What am I supposed to do with myself? How can I make more money? When will I meet my spouse? Should we buy this house or not? Why is life so difficult?
Expectations and desires are such a beautiful and yet dangerous part of life. To have a dream, let alone seeing it fulfilled, creates a feeling in your heart that is essential for a meaningful life. To have desires is to have a heart that is alive. If you feel nothing, hope for nothing, never have a dream, it probably means you have lost your heart and passion for life. But how do we maintain joy when we have unmet expectations, for as the Bible says in Proverbs 13:12, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.”
Two plain truths can be seen from a simple reading of the Bible: God can do whatever he wants. And God asks us to do things.
These two truths make me ask, “Why does God ask for help if he doesn’t need it?” At first glance it seems one of these two truths must be false for the other to be true. If God can do whatever he wants on his own power, then clearly he must not ask us to do things for him. Or, if God does ask us to do things for him, clearly he must not be able to do things on his own.
So which is it? Does God need our help?
When we begin to learn about God’s sovereignty, the temptation is to turn into the “frozen chosen” who use God’s power as an excuse to be lazy. If God is in total control of everything, why pray at all?
Certainly this is a multi layered question that could be talked about endlessly in the theological classroom. The more pressing concern is when the idea of God’s sovereignty hinders your prayer life in a very negatively practical way. This is not what God wants.
So to answer the question, “Why pray if God is Sovereign?”, perhaps a counter question will help us see the Bible’s answer: “Why would you pray if God wasn’t sovereign?”
(Note: This is a condensed version of the article “What Is the Glory of God?” found on our Resource page.)
“What is the glory of God?” is certainly one of the most foundational questions to answer in all of Christianity because the glory of God is so central to the gospel, the Bible, and everything God does.
Humbly, however, we must first accept our answers will always be incomplete as our Infinite God can never fully be described by his finite creatures. With that said, the Bible uses the phrase “glory of God” in many different ways, which means we can create many different definitions in general. However, the Bible primarily uses the phrase “the glory of God” in a specific way, and therefore what follows is a specific definition.
Definition: The glory of God is the invisible qualities, character, or attributes of God displayed in a visible (or knowable) way.
Every Christian wants to know what their calling is from God. However, this question is perhaps one of the most difficult to answer for a variety of reasons: you have to know you are actually hearing from God, you have to know the Scriptures to make sure your calling is congruent with truth, you have to be flexible enough to know who you are today is not who God will make you into five years from now, and you have to be humble enough to accept that your understanding of God’s calling on you will progress and even change throughout the years.
So how do we know what our calling is from God? It helps to break this questions up into two parts: 1. What always is your ultimate calling? 2. What is your specific calling in this season of life?
Imagine a man who loved a woman, but he was going off to war and he didn’t know when he would be back. Before he left he promised her that when he returned, he would marry her. How odd would it be if the woman jumped the gun and went out and bought her own engagement ring? She wanted the promise to be fulfilled, but she did not want to wait, so she took matters into her own hands.
God is a God of promises. He promises good for those who love him. He promises to save those who put their faith in Jesus. He promises to take care of us when we trust him. Throughout nearly every page of Scripture a promise can be found by God.
Life is a journey. The path to God is straight and narrow (Matthew 7:14). But throughout the journey of life there are so many ways to veer away from God. Perhaps one of the most common ways is to seek God’s promises and blessings in your own power.
Why did Jesus stay silent before Herod? Why did he answer some questions but then at other times he gave no answer? At times silence may be perceived as weakness, but in Jesus’ case, he stayed silent for the exact opposite reason. The reason Jesus stayed silent was because Jesus was expressing his strength, power, and authority.
Biblical problem solving revolves around our relationship with God. The bigger your view of God, the smaller your problems become. Problems are produced not in what happens to us, but in on our unmet human expectations.
Biblical Problem Solving: Problems Are Different than Sins
Biblically, problems are different than sins. Problems are things like mistakes, issues, annoyances, or external complications needing to be solved. Sins are offenses against God and people by breaking commands found in the Bible.
Sin is progressive by nature. Unrepentant sin always gets worse and worse. Sin, left to its progressive nature, therefore, eventually leads to death (Romans 6:23). But God does not want this. In fact, one of the reasons God lets people get worse is because he desires for them to get better.