Dignity and Prayer

       I was listening to a sermon and the preacher was talking about the leading of the Holy Spirit. How does it lead and how does it work? Peter was specifically instructed by the Holy Spirit to go with the servants of Cornelius without doubting, and he went in faith being led by the Spirit. Paul went into a city in Asia, but was forbidden to go by the Holy Spirit, so he and his company went to another city and was also forbidden by the Holy Spirit. Paul didn’t know what to do until he received a vision to go to Macedonia. God being all-knowing, and all-powerful could have told Paul where to go or what to do at any moment before being forbidden by the Spirit, but that’s not what happened. If God was all-powerful and all-knowing, why would he need us? Why need apostles to preach the gospel when God could just do it on His own? God wants man to be a part of His life’s story: to have the dignity of causality as C.S. Lewis said.

        God wants us to be a part of His life story that He’s writing for us. Jesus said that God knows everything that we need before we even ask Him, so why ask Him? Why not just have what we need given to us at that instance since God knows everything that we need? That’s not how it works. I’m beginning to understand this myself. God loves us too much to keep us as mindless slaves with no freedom to think and reason for ourselves. God wants us to have the dignity to come before his throne and affect events: that’s why Jesus chose disciples to go and heal the sick everywhere and to cast out demons. God was giving man dignity of causality to change people’s lives. That’s why Jesus said that Peter would catch men after the miracle of catching a lot of fish at Jesus’s word. That’s why He told Peter to walk on water to Him: to give him a dignity.

                I have been in the Sabbath-keeping church all of my life, and I have only recently began to understand this about God. I read the bible daily, and pray daily, but what’s really required of us is to stay in Christ: to love Him and the Father and others. Jesus said that if you love Me keep my commandments. He also said that if you stay in Him, whatever you ask of Him, He will do in order to glorify the Father. What if He doesn’t do what you want Him to do? What if He doesn’t heal the sick? Does that mean you lack faith? Or you haven’t abide in Him? Or is it simply because He chose not too? Whatever the reason be? Will you still believe Him and have faith that what He promised to do, He’ll do? God wants us to have freedom, dignity, and prayer to make a difference in people’s lives. Do you believe this? Or, do you believe that God is a harsh God, and His will is final. If you are destinied to die, is that all there is to life? I don’t believe so. Jesus said that it’s not the will of your Father that any should perish.

        There have been Christians who don’t believe as I believed, and yet had been Godly men and women of faith. The Methodist John Wesley, Polycarp, John Wycliffe, William Tyndale, Joan of Arc, C.S Lewis, George Mueler, and Mother Teresa to name a few, and they all had relationships with God—even though they didn’t believe as I believe. One such man of faith and dignity was George Mueler, who was born in Austria, but moved to England. He was born in the early 19^th century, and lived to an old age throughout the 19^th century. He founded orphanages in Bristol, England, and helped orphans raise their status in English society by teaching them scriptures and a trade. He helped these children to be good people in English society, and even helped them to get apprenticeships in trades. He was a man of faith, and asked God to help with funds and problems with the schools and even asked God to take away a fog as he was on a ship to go to an appointment in Canada, and at that time he converted a captain of the ship. He was a man of dignity and faith.

        I have just began to understand what God wants for me to develop, and began to realize what God sees in me. He sees a freedom-born, strong faith man who does the impossible with God living a life with dignity and love, and he can do this for you too—if you just stay in Him and be filled with His Spirit, and let the Spirit move you to action to change the lives of others through prayer and compassion and small things of glory.