Encouragement 4 The Day-"Would you still love Me?"

I’ve always had a problem with persevering in prayer before God because If felt, that if I asked Him once for something- why should I have to ask Him again? That repeated beseeching in my mind amounted to begging and I don’t particularly care to beg (it’s a pride thing). Besides, if God loved us more than a parent loves a child, why He would require that we supplicate and when Job cried out to Him, and did not curse or desert Him, why did He allow Job to continue suffering?

(I feel the need to place a disclaimer here: these are my thoughts. They are not doctrine, I am not a minister and even if I was-I would encourage you to seek answers from God for yourself.)

So does God intend for us to beg before He answers our prayers? I realized that maybe I was looking at it from a distorted point of view due to my pride. Then the thought occurred to me:

“Could it be that God doesn’t necessarily want us to beg but is testing us to see, if when He does not answer right away or says “No”, would we still love Him?”

It was then I began to realize how vulnerable God is when it comes to our love. Yes, indeed I said it…that an all powerful God is vulnerable. He will not force us to love Him so He is at our mercy when it comes to receiving love from us. Is it then hard to imagine that He would want to test the depth of that love? But you say: “Shouldn’t He already know how deeply we love Him-after all in addition to being all powerful He is all knowing.” True, but have you ever been in a relationship where you believed that the other person “had your back”, your declared that they “had your back” but what happened when it was proven that they were there for you no matter what. There is an even stronger bond that developed …the relationship grew out of adversity.

Indeed, it’s easy to love someone when they provide us with exactly what we want, when we want it. The true test of love comes when conditions aren’t favorable and aren’t conducive to love. God doesn’t want ordinary love…He aches for the type of love that cries out as Job did: Though He slays me, yet will I trust Him!