Approaching God With Confidence

 14This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.- 1 John 5:14-15

Isn’t it amazing that we have the privilege to approach the creator of the universe?  More amazing still is the fact that we can approach Him with confidence.

When our children get to about middle school age, maybe a little younger, they have pretty much learned what mom and dad will allow and what they won’t.  You can tell it in the way they ask.  If your twelve-year-old daughter is brave enough to ask to go out on a date, she probably won’t hold out much hope that you will approve.  And though she might argue, she probably won’t waste a lot of energy on a pointless fight.  On the other hand, she wouldn’t give a second thought about asking if she could go with her youth group to serve at the soup kitchen.  She knows before she even asks that you will give your whole-hearted permission.  She knows how you will react to both of these requests because she knows you.  She knows what you think is good and what you think is not so good.  She knows what you expect of her.

We can approach our heavenly Father with this same confidence when we are asking for something we know He will approve.  We can ask these things when we know Him… when we know what He says is good and what He says is not so good… when we know what He expects of us.  

When we pray for an easy way out of a bad situation we have gotten ourselves into, we know that God probably has a lesson for us to learn and we are going to have to go through it rather than around it, don’t we?  We might ask, but we don’t have a lot of confidence that things are going to happen the way we think we want them to.  With prayer, the situation will turn out for our best, but not the easy way we would like.  But when we pray for God to send us a ministry or show us how we can serve or how to best spend that extra money that has come our way, we can be confident that an answer is coming our way.  Doors will open.  Opportunities will present themselves.  “Coincidences” will abound. 

If our prayers are centered around making our lives easier, we probably have ceased “approaching God with confidence” a long time ago.  Try asking God for something that you know is in His will.  Ask him for an opportunity to serve.  Ask him to send a person you can lead to Christ.  You can be confident that your prayer will be heard.

Father,
Teach us your will so that we may pray with more and more confidence.  Thank you for the awesome privilege of being able to approach you at all and for the unbelievable privilege of being able to approach you with confidence.  Amen.

Joys: a fun weekend with family; flowering trees; wildflowers beginning to dot the lawns and fields