Thank God, that God doesn't bargain

[Momo-P]

Recently some stuff was bothering me that really shouldn't have. Things I already knew the answers to, but simply couldn't get my mind off of...and no matter what I did, it never stopped.

Eventually I did what humans do. "God, please, I'm getting so tired of this. I beg of you, if you make it go away I'll do..."

I'll give more money to the church.
I'll give up a story I love.
I'll stop going to a site.
I'll stop eating a certain food.

The list goes on and on. Thankfully though, God doesn't bargain. Making promises and vows doesn't hurt anybody, but the fact is we don't even need to. And thank God we don't need to.

Not only does God already own everything to begin with, but He could force you to give something up if He really wanted to anyways. In the end there is nothing you could possibly do to please Him, but yet...He still helps us anyways. Just because. For no real reason.

Recently the Lord helped me in such a case and I am so grateful. I did say some stuff I shouldn't have, and I do plan to keep it, but still...we all need to stop doing this.

Sure God may accept our words, but God isn't a human. To put Him on a level where He only helps us because we give up things? How insulting is that? The Lord asks us to give up evil, but we want to give up evil anyways. We feel guilt and other feelings when we do things we know are wrong! When humans bargain with God though, nothing wrong is done at all. It's just pointless sacrificing that leaves the human depressed and God looking less glorious than He really is.

God loves us. If a human being is willing to help you without asking anything in return, than can't we just trust our Father in heaven?

[Bekalou]

Amen to that. I have a problem which may or may not be similar to yours, but mine is such that I am given over to worry about whether or not I might be sinning; worrying that although something about my lifestyle or my hobbies/interests/desires/hopes isn't directly addressed in the Bible (and is not inherently sin according to God's commands), that it somehow might be a sin in some way, and it really just ends up being pointless cyclical mental torture of "well it might be wrong...but the Bible doesn't really say...but I want to please God...but I want to do this...but...but...but..." And it occupies my thoughts and inhibits my actions, makes me physically sick and disturbed and, quite frankly, the worry becomes my sin. My worry causes me to fear that God is going to take away the things I love and I won't be able to do anything about it. And I almost want to bargain and say, "God, if you let me do this, I'll...!" but heh, knowing me, I'm scared of that too.

But thank God indeed that God isn't human like we are. And I think it's dishonoring to God to make deals with him, because then we're not accepting His gift of perfect love, grace, mercy, and liberty. God wants to pour out his love on us, and it's our own flawed nature that doesn't allow us to accept it because, quite frankly, it's so contrary to our humanity.

In the end, I pray for contentment. I pray that whatever God chooses for my life, whatever He allows me to do or does not allow me to do, that He will give me joy in His decision, so that I don't have to feel like I've "missed out" or been deprived of something exciting, or else still feel worry that I made a wrong decision. God doesn't want us to live lives of misery and restraint, but lives of joy and liberty (while avoiding sin) under His perfect grace.

[Souba]

I am so touched to read these messages. I too worried a lot about inadvertently sinning because I made the wrong decision, and he took dreams away from me. At the same time, God was healing me, He was giving me new dreams, and I couldn't understand it! I didn't think I deserved anything He gave me, but like Bekalou said It's just God's amazing grace!
So now I try not to worry about what I do, I just trust that God is leading me, and even if I mess up He will make it work together for my good. Not because I've earned it but because God is a Loving God who gave His son for us even though we didn't deserve it so that we would be free from bondage in our lives.
Beloved in Grace,
Souba