How to shortcircuit your faith and God’s blessing …

This has resulted in countless ministries never being launched …

This has caused untold numbers of people, churches, and organizations to not take a risk …

This has sapped the peace and joy out of innumerable days in the lives of believers …

What is this terrible thing that deteriorates our faith into something other than truly trusting God?

It’s when we attempt to turn God into a process of blessing that we try to manage.

Let me better explain that statement by sharing a powerful one-line tweet shared by Daniel Cooper: “I spend waaay too much time trying to figure out HOW God is going to provide and not nearly enough time just asking for His provision.”

We may come to God and ask for our needs, or even the desires of our heart, but the problem is that we so often do not trust God with the “how” of our requests.

A couple decades ago, Charles F. Kettering wrote the following: “When I was research head of General Motors and wanted a problem solved, I’d place a table outside the meeting room with a sign: ‘Leave slide rules here.’ If I didn’t do that, I’d find someone reaching for his slide rule. Then he’d be on his feet saying, ‘Boss, you can’t do it’.”

We do the same with God. Using our finite, little human minds, we reduce God to our size and question HOW will God be able to come through on what we’ve asked for in our prayers. We need the provision and blessing of God, yet we try to manage that process by determining HOW God will provide. When we can’t figure that out, we allow that human limitation to cause us to doubt God instead of trust Him.

But that’s missing the point entirely, as faith is about trusting God for what we can’t see and understand. It is especially trusting God with the “how.”

“Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see,” Hebrews 11:1.

The New Testament is full of exhortations for us to bring our requests before God, and Jesus taught us to be persistent — to even pester God — with our requests. But key to our asking God for what we need and what we want is trusting Him to provide. We make the requests, and we leave the “how” up to Him.

That’s living by faith.

Are you living by faith? Do you make your requests known to God, and then trust Him to work out how He will provide for you? Or do you spend your time trying to figure out how God could possibly answer your prayers?

Scotty