Into His Hands – The Progression Continues

Aug. 15, 2012

My post two weeks ago was about a progression of four steps that led me to a deeper understanding of seeking God first and of simply seeking God.  My point being that when my prayers are centered primarily around what I want God to do for me and what can God relieve me of, then I am not seeking God for a relationship with Him, I am seeking Him for selfish purposes.  Additionally, from a counseling perspective, when my prayers are centered on relieving my pain or anxiety, then I am still focusing on that pain and anxiety.

I have always visually pictured “letting go” of something or “giving it to God” as me laying “it” down at the foot of the cross and saying, “OK God, it’s yours.  I can’t handle it.”  And then, ten minutes later, I would pick “it” back up again and worry or try to control "it" or whatever.  Then, in recognizing that I am carrying the burden again, I lay it again at the foot of the cross.  Back and forth this process goes with hopefully “it” laying at the cross longer and longer each time before I retrieve it.  The problem in this process is that I feel both the success and the failure and I usually end up feeling like the failure longer.

As I said in the prior post in part three of the progression, I’ve truly learned recently that my holding onto “it” or the mire, then I am holding it between me and God.  It is a barrier between us.  I can’t grab hold of God with both hands if I am holding onto something else.  So, simply seeking God in order to know Him better, in order to know His character more fully, in order to truly understand that He loves me unconditionally and why, means that I have to lay down whatever barrier is between us.  If I lay that down, then I have to believe that God will pick it up.  I have to believe that because I know He loves me.

Psalm 22 is a chapter that I use quite often in my counseling.  (I won’t quote it here because it is too lengthy to include here but take a moment to read it now.)  I love it because it is even titled “A cry of anguish and a song of praise.”  It is written during the time that David was running from Saul.  David expresses a lot of emotion in this psalm including anger, indignation, desperation, frustration, feelings of abandonment and rejection, as well as praise, love, and trust.  I use this psalm because it is a great example that proves it is OK to yell and be angry with God.  However, it is vitally important to continue to praise God through it all.  When you study the psalm, you will see that David opens by telling God he feels abandoned.  Then he talks about how the fathers trusted God and that God is holy.  Next, he reverts to indignation and worthlessness.  He basically says, “Hey, I’m worthless, people are mocking me, they are mocking my faith, and they are even mocking you, God!”  But, once again, he turns back and praises God for creating him and for making him trust God.  Then, David cries out about his poor physical condition and how he is surrounded by the bad guys.  In the next breath, David praises God again and ends the chapter with praise.

The pattern that David set is important because in it he lands on the positive, he ends with praise.  He ends feeling better.  And that is where I have always stopped with my thoughts on this psalm until this week.  More was revealed to me – part five of the progression.  I see now that through all of David’s praise, he was simply seeking God.  Only twice, and both times are short little phrases, did David directly ask God to relieve him in his present situation.  Everything else is about God: His character, His power, His creative ability, His holiness, and His trustworthiness.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that petition prayers are wrong.  They are incredibly biblical.  Phil. 4:6 says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”  My point is that we need to be sure that we are seeking God himself most importantly.  When I seek God in my prayers, I no longer visualize myself leaving “it” at the foot of the cross.  That process is unnecessary because I’ve already laid it down when I grab onto God himself.

There are those who are very near and dear to me.  Do I want to be spend time with them because of what they can do for me?  Or, do I want to be with them simply because I want to know them better and, through that, I feel better when I am in their presence?