Good Gifts

I don't usually post two blogs so close together, but I wanted to share...

So recently at CMA things are getting close to performance time, which means that I am finishing up teaching dances and and am in the process of "cleaning" them. In one of my classes, I had a girl missing two weeks in a row and was getting a little concerned (read: very anxious/worried) about catching her up and cleaning that dance in two short weeks. So last night I was praying about this, and then I was like, why am I praying about this? Its not like it matters to God that much. It would really only make me feel better about myself, make me feel like I'm a good teacher.

And then I heard that little whispering voice say "Why do you think I don't want to give you good things?"

This is not the first time I have asked this question, or received this answer, but every time it happens, I have to go back and ask What is it that makes me doubt that the Lord wants to give me such things? Now, I'm not one of those people who buys into the "name it and claim it" philosophy of some, I probably tend to err on the side of assuming too often that God doesn't want to give ___ to me.

My answer last year was in a situation with my dad. My dad sometimes says to me "If you do ___ I will give you all the money in my pocket." And more often than not, I say no, because for all I know he could have 10 cents in his pocket. But one of the times I did do it, I ended up getting over $3.00 in change from his pocket.....And how often do we do that with God? Assume that he doesn't want to bless us, His beloved children? Or worse, will just rip us off when we ask for things?

"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you....Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!" Matt. 7:7, 9-11

Obviously, no good parents gives their children everything they want, but that doesn't mean that we should hesitate to run to God with all of our requests, big and small. He has proven His goodness to us in dying on the cross, first and foremost--is anything we could possibly request of more worth than that?

"Let them thank the Lord for His steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of men! For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things." Ps. 107:8-9