Prayer is the difference between the best we can do and the best God can do.
Mark Batterson
I don’t want to scare you, but you’re having triplets!” is a sentence I will remember as long as I live. We were going in for my first sonogram after getting a positive pregnancy test. Our doctor performed the test in about two seconds before telling us the news.
I started celebrating as if I had won an Olympic gold medal—pumping my arms and cheering, thanking God, and giving Ryan a majorly corny high five, though it took Ryan a second to switch mindsets after hearing “I don’t want to scare you . . .” to comprehending this was the best news of our lives. We were thrilled! It was the moment we knew our prayers had been answered. It was the moment that changed everything.
But was it really that moment, or was it the hundreds, if not thousands, of moments leading up to this moment that made the difference? This was the moment we found out our prayers were answered, but this was not the moment of God’s actual intervention. This was merely the unveiling at the end of a building project. This was the diploma at the end of an educational endeavor. This was the prize at the end of an exhausting race. This was the moment we knew God had heard, seen, and been in all the other moments when we had been praying for big things.
We had asked, pleaded, and begged God for this very specific prayer request, and He answered as only the God of the universe can answer: timely, specifically, and powerfully. Our doctors and countless people since then have asked, “Were you surprised?” We always respond, “No, we weren’t surprised, because we asked God and truly believed He would answer yes.”
The Fear of What If?
While announcing the triplets to our student ministry, church family, and social media world was a blast, after three miscarriages in a year it was hard to ignore the deep-seated fear of What if? What if God doesn’t let these babies live? What if we announce the triplets as this incredible miracle and then lose them like we lost the others? What if we announce the triplets to our student ministry but then have to provide grief counseling for three hundred–plus students? If something happens, does that mean God isn’t good? If something happens, does that mean the triplets weren’t miracles? If something happens, will we stop following God?
No, it wouldn’t mean any of this because God is good, even if any of these things did happen. As my dad often says, “Faith is not believing God will do what we want Him to do. Faith is believing God is who He says He is and acting accordingly.” God’s goodness does not depend on whether we get what we want; God’s goodness is the very nature of who God is and encompasses all He does, regardless of whether we understand or agree.
During the early part of the pregnancy, I kept feeling a need to protect God. I would constantly remind everyone around me that God was good and in control no matter what happened. While this was true, it was more important for me to have human reactions than to be the resident theologian. My constant quotation of “God is good, even if . . .” combined with my paralyzing anxiety of not being able to even say the word triplets without fear washing over me like a tsunami to create an uncomfortable but necessary dichotomy. This conflict represented the balance of correct theology and the essence of being human. The importance of my claiming God is good no matter what was paramount to my not crumbling in fear. Coming to God with my fears, questions, and anxiety was equally important, as it allowed me to stay close to God and in touch with myself.
I started praying Psalm 30:9: “What is gained if I am silenced, if I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it proclaim your faithfulness?” (NIV). I’m going to go out on a limb here and say this is probably no one’s favorite Bible verse. But it represented the rawest truth I was experiencing. I committed that I would tell God over and over that I would follow Him no matter what—but I also reminded Him that with thousands of Christians praying, this would be a great win for the team. I told God that there really wasn’t anything praiseworthy about letting the babies die and nothing would be gained if their lives were lost.
God’s plan includes suffering, it includes circumstances that are beyond our understanding, and it even includes death. But this doesn’t mean we aren’t supposed to ask with everything in us for God to be our “very present help in trouble” (46:1).
As I look back on that time period, I honestly miss it. I never would want to go back to the uncertainty, but I miss having no option but to fully and totally trust God during my pregnancy, begging God to remember me and my children.
The Key to God’s Blessings
How do we receive God’s blessings? How do we live a life that truly matters? How do we have the Almighty God act mightily in our lives? What is the balance between our actions and God’s blessings? I’m glad you asked! Before answering these questions, let’s start with one fundamental truth: God does not owe us anything, but He has promised us everything. Our existence on earth may look very different from the eternal rewards in our ultimate home in heaven.
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells us, “The last shall be first, and the first last” (20:16). We are all playing by the same rules. God has marked out how we are to live and has told us how He will act when we follow Him. Being obedient doesn’t mean things always go as we planned, hoped, or prayed. Obedience puts us in the place of being able to receive God’s blessings instead of His discipline. And that is a great place to be. Obedience unleashes God’s blessing in our lives. Obedience is the key to God’s blessings.
A few years ago, Ryan and I went to a Dave Ramsey seminar where Dave talked about the Jewish ritual of Havdalah. In this weekly custom, Jews fill the cup until it overflows as they ask God to pour out blessings on their family. Now, I come from a theological background that is very sensitive about not preaching anything remotely resembling the prosperity gospel, which, in a nutshell, is the belief Christians are entitled to a certain lifestyle here on earth. In this view, Christians should never get sick unless something is wrong spiritually. Their family life should go well unless they have done something wrong. Their lifelong battle with depression will be lifted if only they would give 70 percent of their earnings to the church.
Let me be clear that I do not believe in the prosperity gospel. I do not think we can force God’s hand, and I do not agree that God “owes” us any material things. However, I do believe that God blesses those who are obedient to Him. So Ryan and I began praying, “Lord, pour out Your blessings on us.” We unashamedly asked God to please bless us in any and every way possible—financially, relationally, spiritually, and physically.
Obedience is not a guarantee you will receive a million-dollar inheritance, your loved one will be healed, or your spouse will change. Obedience ensures that God takes notice of us, our lives and our faithfulness, and puts us in the place of receiving His blessing—whatever that may be. Sometimes peace in the midst of a storm is a bigger blessing than resolving the storm.
Psalm 18 describes how God intervenes in the lives of those who cry out to Him:
In my distress I called upon the LORD
And cried to my God for help;
He heard my voice out of His temple,
And my cry for help before Him came into His ears.
Then the earth shook and quaked;
And the foundations of the mountains were trembling
And were shaken, because He was angry.
Smoke went up out of His nostrils,
And fire from His mouth devoured;
Coals were kindled by it.
He bowed the heavens also, and came down
With thick darkness under His feet.
He rode upon a cherub and flew;
And He sped upon the wings of the wind. . . .
He sent from on high, He took me;
He drew me out of many waters.
He delivered me from my strong enemy. . . .
He rescued me, because He delighted in me.
The LORD has rewarded me according to my righteousness. (Ps. 18:6–10, 16–17, 19–20)
Joseph—An Example of Obedience
Joseph did not wait to be invited, wait for others to see his dream-interpreting capabilities, or wait to be rescued by anyone. He made the most out of every opportunity to be noticed and remembered by others, with the goal of being rescued.
His constant faithfulness and obedience paid off when God gave him the green light. Joseph went all-in. He was called up to the plate, remembered his coach, and came to play.
Then Pharaoh said to his servants, “Can we find a man like this, in whom is a divine spirit?” So Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Since God has informed you of all this, there is no one so discerning and wise as you are. You shall be over my house, and according to your command all my people shall do homage; only in the throne I will be greater than you.” Pharaoh said to Joseph, “See I have set you over all the land of Egypt.” . . .
Thus Joseph stored up grain in great abundance like the sand of the sea, until he stopped measuring it, for it was beyond measure. (Gen. 41:38–41, 49)
I cannot help but smile upon reading the phrase, “for it was beyond measure.” God longs to be gracious to us and to do things in our lives that are beyond measure, beyond our wildest dreams.
I imagine Joseph had fantasized about being rescued and released. I doubt he had dreamed of being Pharaoh’s second in command, with no one being able to set foot in the land he was a captive in without his permission. But such is God, who promises, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor. 2:9 NLT). Day after day, Joseph kept being faithful and obedient. God saw all of it and rewarded him accordingly.
There is no way of knowing what God is preparing you for in the future. But isn’t that part of the excitement? God wants us to keep being faithful. Keep obeying. Keep praying. The apostle Peter wrote, “Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time” (1 Pet. 5:6). How do we humble ourselves so that we can receive God’s blessing?
Confess Any Known Sin
First, we can confess our sin. Habitual sin is different from an accidental sin. The root word habit is obviously in the word habitual. The picture of habitual sin is having a fist raised to God in the attitude of, “I know I’m sinning, but I just don’t care and I’m not going to change!”
This kind of sin is the one we battle with, sometimes for years. This is the sin that often keeps us out of church, out of fellowship with other believers, and running for high ground when anything or anyone remotely spiritual threatens our way of life. This sin entraps us, kills us, and leads us further from God than we ever imagined. This is the sin that used to be so clearly sin before we looked up and saw it was no longer an action but a way of life.
We are to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts” (Rom. 13:14). In other words, we are to make no way for sin to enter our lives. Sin is a deadly virus that threatens everything we ultimately want and everything God wants us to be. You will never fully unleash God’s power in your life until you confess and repent of habitual sin. We place a limit on ourselves when we ignore the Holy Spirit.
I developed the habit a few years ago of recommitting my life to the Lord every morning. I wake up and say, “God, I’ll do whatever You want me to do today. Show me what that is, and help me to do it!” We want to obey. We want to have a clear conscience. We want to unleash God’s power and blessing in our lives.
Let me encourage you with something my sister told me yesterday on the phone: “Well, God hasn’t been wrong so far.” No, He sure hasn’t, and He isn’t going to start now. If God is tugging at your heart, then listen. If you think something is wrong but don’t know what it is, ask God to reveal it to you through His Word. The Bible doesn’t tell us what supermarket to go to but it does tell us how to have peace, how to date, how to have a successful marriage, how to find our life purpose, how to manage money, how to be wise, and the list goes on and on. We pave the way for God’s blessings when we give up that sin that is hurting us. Remember, God longs to be gracious to us.
Claim God’s Word as Truth
Second, we can claim God’s Word. My whole life changed when I quit seeing the Bible as a book of suggestions and instead started seeing it as the only way life would work. God’s Word is true for everyone, not just for me, not just for missionaries, and not just for the spiritually elite. God’s Word is true for you, my friend, and it has the power to change everything. The problem is that when we say “claim God’s Word,” most of us don’t know what to claim because we really don’t know what the Bible says. The Bible is not a collection of abstract ideas that we have to attend seminary in order to decipher.
To give you a taste of the practicality found in the Bible, here are just a few of the commands, promises, and instructions it has for us:
If we are a follower of Jesus Christ, then we are chosen (Eph. 1:4–5).
A lot of the things we don’t have are the result of not asking God for them or asking with wrong motives (James 4:3).
Divorce and remarriage are allowed when there is infidelity or desertion (Matt. 5:31–32; 1 Cor. 7:10–16).
God promises to avenge wrongs and evildoing (Rom. 12:19).
Clear Your Conscience
Third, we can clear our conscience. When I was a little girl, I would come home every day after school and tell my parents everything I had done wrong that day. I would confess every bad intention, every unkind action, every sin big and little I had committed during my eight-hour day of elementary school. My parents had it pretty easy (at least for my elementary years) because I would just come home and tell on myself. Was I really that bad of a kid? No, but I had a disproportionate view of the Scripture verses “Confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed” (James 5:16) and “Against You, You only, I have sinned” (Ps. 51:4). My parents thought it was cute at first but quickly saw how much distress that confessing every envious thought about hair bows was causing me.
It’s often hard to know the difference between actual conviction, overanalyzing, and self-condemnation. Psychology has a term for religious people who mercilessly analyze their every action and thought, resulting in paralyzing anxiety: scrupulosity. This is not where any of us thrive. This is not God’s desire for us.
Our culture tends to swing to the other extreme of no accountability while holding the banner high of “Do not judge, or you too will be judged” (Matt. 7:1 NIV). This ignores the biblical command to flee from sin and to restore people who are living a life of sin. Then sometimes we throw in, “To one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin” (James 4:17), meaning that the gray areas of life are okay for some people but may not be right for you.
So, what are we to do? I love my dad’s definition of a clear conscience: “The knowledge that neither God nor anyone else can accuse you of a wrong you have not attempted to make right.” God doesn’t accuse Christians. We are forgiven and in a right standing with Him from an eternal judgment standpoint. Our sin is “forgiven, forgotten, forever” as the church song goes. But there are times in our lives where our parental relationship with God is in a difficult place because of sin in our lives. God often wants the sin addressed before He answers our heartfelt pleas. I encourage you to honestly ask God to show you if there is anything in your life displeasing to Him. As far as overanalyzing our actions goes, if the action isn’t something that Jesus had to die for, it isn’t a sin. Simple as that. But if there is something that needs to change, change it. Let us not get in the habit of ignoring the Holy Spirit.
Fourth, we obey to the best of our ability. When I hear obedience, I often think of a dog owner commanding her dog to sit. Honestly, that image is not too motivational as I think about how I am supposed to follow God. Obedience is not always exciting. Obedience is not always fun. Obedience is rarely easy. But obedience always gets God’s attention.
Second Chronicles 16:9 tells us, “The eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him” (ESV). “To give strong support” is such an impactful phrase. I want God’s strong support. The Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the God who was and is and is to come strongly supports those whose hearts are blameless toward Him. That seems like a winning combination to me.
Obedience is not always easy, but it is always worth it.
Depend on God to Keep His Promises
Fifth, we depend on God’s trustworthiness. God is going to keep His Word. The apostle Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 2:13, “If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.” Faithfulness is the essence of God’s existence.
We are to concern ourselves with being obedient, making the most out of our opportunities, furthering the cause of Christ, and giving God the glory—and God will do the rest. “Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will stand before kings; he will not stand before obscure men” (Prov. 22:29). God sees your hard work. God sees your knee work. God sees your heart work. God sees and rewards accordingly. His timetable may not be our timetable, but God is never late, never early, and always on time.
“Quit Waiting for an Invitation to Your Own Life”
Sixth, we give all we have, and we give it now. I was once watching a television show in which a young woman blurted out to her mother, “Quit waiting for an invitation to your own life!” I think that is a brilliant line. How much time are we wasting waiting to be invited to our own lives? We wait for an invitation. We wait for a certain amount of income. We wait to see if we are accepted by others. We wait for God to lay out the whole plan before obeying. We wait around and let others live our lives. We wait. And as we wait, we waste opportunities, relationships, and time. We honor God when we give this life all we have.
Go All-In
When God gives the green light, we go all-in! We pray hard. We work hard. We do everything we can in our power to honor what God has blessed us with; to protect it, to make the most of it, to leave no rock unturned and no opportunity missed. We do all we can while we can, and depend on God to do what we cannot do.
Mark Batterson says in his book Draw the Circle to remember that we are always just one degree from knowing anyone, because God knows everyone.1 This idea is what led to Ryan and me praying for a TV show when we had no connections whatsoever to a producer. We wanted to get the miraculous story of our triplets to as big of an audience as possible so that as many people as possible could be encouraged. We prayed that God would open that door, and He did. Our job was to pray big things, and God answered in big ways!
We honor God when we dream big, pray bigger, and give Him all we have. Dreaming big shows the faith we have in Him. Praying big shows the trust we have in Him. Giving God all we have shows our gratefulness for His blessings.
Luke 16:10 reminds us, “He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much; and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much.” Let us prove ourselves faithful with every little thing that we are given so that God is able to entrust us with even more because He knows He can count on us to be faithful.