The Answer Lies Within

I think one of the most frustrating things about the past year has involved my ideas of what I need to actually be doing, regarding both my faith and my decisions in life. What I've heard is to approach every important decision prayerfully. Good advice, to be sure. But what if there is no immediate answer, or I'm uncertain of what God is telling me, versus what I'm internally telling myself? (That last part is particularly discouraging, because ideally we should recognize God's voice. So when I don't, I begin to question myself. But that's a different matter.)

What I've noticed in the past year is that my behavior has changed. This is generally good, because before my return to faith, my behavior pretty much sucked. But in this case, I might have overcompensated with something. Something with regards to faith and action. It's become my tendency to pray about the things that are on my heart and mind. That's good too, but I've come to the realization that it's just not enough.

I grew up with the notion that God doesn't just work in miracles. That is to say, He's not just some Santa-genie-fairygodfather type figure, here to grant our every wish as long as we believe. He's going to do for us what will ultimately lift us up to glorify Him. In that light, when we pray over a situation and ask for something, sometimes the answer is yes, and sometimes it's no. But I think more often than we realize, the answer is in the form of a decision that has to be made by us.

Don't get me wrong; I know and believe that God does sometimes intervene in situations on a supernatural level. But I also believe that He likes us to interact as well. It's not like we're just along for the ride in this, and He's not going to just give us everything we ask for, even when we trust in Him.

That's where free will comes in. God empowers us to accomplish things by using the abilities that He has gifted to us. This principle that I spent most of my life believing somehow got lost between walking away and returning to my faith. When that happened, I stopped acting on my faith, using the excuse that "it's in God's hands". In reality, His provision is in giving me the ability to take care of some things myself, and not requiring a supernatural phenomenon every time something comes up.