Speaking out of a long Christian Experience
“If our hearts do not condemn us, then we can expect with confidence to receive from God what we have been asking from him, because we obey his commandments and we do what pleases him.”
(1John 3: 21)
In the above passage the apostle John assures us that our prayers will be answered if we have lived our life in a faithful, holy and loving manner…
I am too young a Christian to be able to validate this passage with my life’s experience, but my father, who has is now 73 years old and has lived 50 years as a jealous and obedient child of God, shared with me his experience in Christ, and I am now going to share it with you:
He told me:
“Since the blessed day that I was born again, I have been as dedicated and obedient to Jesus Christ as I could be. My conscience is clear, and I therefore expected to receive from God what I have been asking from him, because I obeyed his commandments and we did what pleases him.” (as promised in 1 John 3: 21
And yet… my most fervent requests have not been granted to me!
I fought very hard with myself, against my strong sinful tendencies, so as to live an obedient, holy and loving life, and I am convinced that I have succeeded in doing so!
So, why hasn’t this verse been proven true in my life?
I must have certainly failed to pass the high standard that Jesus demands of us: that of loving our brothers and sisters in Christ as much as Jesus loved us, or as much as we love ourselves, but I did my best, and I did not see anybody else do better! On the contrary…
And yet, now, in my old age, I see everyone else, Christian or not, being better off in this life than I am!
At least, they seem to be so, and I have been at a loss as to why…God has forsaken me!
Lately however, (a bit late, I know), I have came to realize that the petitions I was making in my prayers have been opposing one another:
On the one hand, I have been begging God to guide me and make me happy here on earth, namely by giving me a loving wife, a good job and a blessed and healthy family… which he did, for a while, but then, repeatedly took all that away from me!
On the other hand, I have been always been asking him to help me become one of his best, closest and most faithful followers, with whom he is well pleased!
These always were my most fervent wishes put into a nutshell, and God must have been at loss himself as to how to grant them, since they conflicted with one another:
In order to become great in God’s eyes one must certainly be sorely tried!
He must be put through the fire, the fire of afflictions and sorrows that is meant to burn what is impure in man and make him pleasing to his God.
And then, he must be sorely tested much like Job was: He must prove himself to be worthy of being called “a child of God”!
Such a necessarily painful process would have been impossible if God was primarily concerned with granting me happiness on earth!
In his mercy and goodness, God gave me, short periods when I felt like being the happiest and most blessed person on earth, but he, then, repeatedly took away all that and make me feel like being the most forsaken and miserable child of his.
And this because my loving God is far more interested in making out of me the “better” child of his that I wanted to be, than the “happy” person that I was expecting to be!
My daily studying of the Bible should have taught me all this much earlier, but I was blinded by my needs and by the prevailing theology of our times that convinces us that God wants to make us happy and fulfilled!
I should be thankful for whatever little happiness I got along the journey. It was a bonus!
But I should have resigned much earlier of expecting to receive blessings upon blessings in this world.
I should have braced myself to live a life of sorrows, and hardships, for that is what how all great men of God experienced in their life!”
That was my father’s experience and conclusion, and his words make sense and help me to better understand God’s ways.
I hope that they will help you too, remembering the passage in …….. that tells us:
“Do not find it strange that you have to suffer, because that is what we can expect when living for Christ!” ?(…)