God's Solution

Believers Ministry Daily Devotional

Donna Braman

This Is The Day The Lord Has Made And I Shall Rejoice In It!

ACCCEPTING GOD'S SOLUTION

Read: 2 Chronicles 20: 14-25

God, my boss is intolerable, please get me another job. Lord, my in-laws are driving me crazy, do something with them. Lord, help me with this pain or my financial crisis.

Christians almost universally agree, "God answers prayer." But many people, if they were honest, would change the phrase to say, "The Lord answers most prayers, but not mine." A believer can fervently call upon God without receiving what he considers a satisfactory answer. The stumbling block isn't God's unwillingness or inability to respond, but rather the word satisfactory. If we come to God with a preconceived idea of how to solve our problem, we will likely overlook His true solution, especially if we are trying to solve it the world's way or our own way.

Suppose King Jehoshaphat had decided that God could answer his prayer only by giving the army extra strength for the forthcoming skirmish. He would have called a war council, got his soldiers ready, and set up battle lines. God's solution was entirely unexpected: First, send the choir out singing praises, then watch the Lord save Israel. If Jehoshaphat's soldiers had attempted combat that way, they would have lost Jerusalem.

SEED WORD:

The truth is that sometimes we don't like God's solution. We desire freedom from physical pain rather than grace to endure it. Or we want a new boss instead of working out differences, or we want the in-laws to just go away instead of seeking forgiveness for our poor attitudes. In reality, we want the Lord to fix everything without requiring any effort from us. But our willingness to obey is key to anwered prayer. When He tells us how to resolve our problem, we must act just as He specifies, or we will never be satisfied or feel our prayers have been answered. There is not a problem that any of us can have that Jesus himself did not answer in his commands and teachings, and the Epistles further explain how to approach problems, how to live our daily lives, how we are to respond to others. If you would prayfully seek the biblical principle to the problem, instead of jumping out there with self in the way, you will be able to find the solution God's way. Remember God puts a problem before us to solve so we can advance in our walk with him so he can mature us in order to promote us in the Kingdom. When we keep on trying to do things of our own power and will, we go around the mountain over and over and we find it difficult to deepen our relationship with him. But oh, we serve a merciful and patient Father who is forever sending us the sword of the Spirit to help nudge us toward completeness in Him. When we respond to difficult situations God's way people take notice because we respondt differently than the world.

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