By Human Hands

How many times does a character on TV turn to God to get what they want only for that very thing to occur while they pray? The prayer as well as the "Never mind" which interrupts it is played for laughs. 

This is a humorous set up, but it reveals something true. We often ask for God's help, but we use His answer to discredit His involvement. 

We want God to answer our prayers, but He can't answer them too quickly, too slowly, or in a way that involves other factors or people without us seeing those circumstances above Him.

Recently, I was watching a show in which a character and his family were transported from their low-income neighborhood because a wealthy benefactor saw his talent.

At one point in the show, his girlfriend is questioning whether a higher power exists. His response?

"There's no such thing as a higher power . . . When I was a kid, my mom used to thank God for every good thing that happened . . . I watched my mom get on her knees and pray every night, begging God to take us out of our crappy neighborhood. But you know who did? Me. God doesn't exist." ~Timeless

While this is not my line of thinking, it seemed like a reasonable one for the character to hold. But then it hit me: he was the answer to his mother's prayers.

God gave this character his talents. God put him in the circumstances to become a wealthy man's protege. God answered the prayer, but He used multiple people to do it.

When we see God moving in the blessing, it's a beautiful testament to God's care in that He invites us into His answer, allowing us to be His means. When we don't see God, the presence of ordinary people seems like proof that God didn't answer. Like ordinary circumstances ensure that a supernatural God wasn't present.

But how often does God work in supernatural ways through natural means?

And instead of seeing God working, we attribute the provision to human efforts. And when we see it that way, we become more blinded and closed off because if human efforts really pulled it off, then either God doesn't exist or doesn't care. We paint a cruel picture of God by believing we were our own answer, and our hearts become hard. We write the Author out of our story, and when things continue to go well or improve, we see it as proof that He was never there instead of seeing it as evidence of His grace. 

It's like trying to row a boat that's on land. We row and row and row, praying to move, and suddenly God places us in the water, and we surge into motion. But our movement was a result of our rowing, and instead of seeing how God positioned our work to bring blessing, we see only our efforts. 

Ezekiel 16:15 starts, "but you trusted in your beauty." Chapter 16 shows us that we were abhorrent before God bestowed beauty on us, but that gracious gift turns to destruction in this verse when we begin to see our gifts as inherent instead of knowing the Giver. 

God is so kind to partner with us, to invite us into His story, to give us a role, to let us be His vessels, but when we look to our role as our strength, God will become unnecessary to our story. And in this place our hearts will always harden towards His grace. 

That's a hardness we're used to seeing. It's a hardness that God has to break down in us. But it's not always a hardness that we recognize. 

Sometimes it hides behind layers that must be peeled back. It's not often as easy as a comedic line on not needing God's help after all. 

The truth is that we often think we can do it on our own. It's the moments that we feel helpless to change that we turn to God. But even as followers of Christ, if we don't live in that dependence, if we don't constantly remind ourselves that it's Him in us that moves and not ourselves, we fall back into patterns of self-reliance. 

Every prayer that God answers has the potential to increase our hope in ourselves or to increase our dependence on and thanksgiving to Him. 

It all depends on the position we give ourselves in the story.