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The Price of Super Seed
by Rose Murdock There are at least two types of thinking that will keep us from receiving answers to our prayers, or at least the full answer of our prayers. I’m sure there are many more than two but there are two I want to address here. Prejudiced thinking I call it prejudice because a person is not open for God to use whatever avenue He wants to bring the answer. We can pray and ask God for something, but we might assume it can or will only happen a certain way. We’re not open for God to use ways that we don’t accept. As a result of this kind of prejudiced thinking a person limits the avenues God can use. We have to be willing to pay the price, meaning be willing to do whatever God asks us to, in order to receive what we are praying for and expecting Him to do for us. If we will only expect God to do certain things in certain ways then we are limiting Him and we may not be in a position to receive our answer. In both the Old and New Testaments we see the Lord asking people to do various things in order to receive their miracle. Jesus told one man to go wash in a pool to receive his healing and He told the lepers to go show themselves to the priests. Elisha sent his servant to go tell Naaman to wash seven times in the Jordan River in order to be cleansed from his leprosy. We need to remain open for the Lord to do things in a way other then what we have pre-conceived in our minds. When we’re not completely open to Him we may explain our thinking as ‘wisdom.’ We may think that we are discerning how God will do things but we need to check our hearts and motives to make sure that it’s not just stubbornness, pride or rebellion on our part that is keeping us from being open to allow God to do things however He wants. We need to remain humble and adjust our prayers and confessions of faith so that we are not dictating to God how He is going to answer our prayers. With prejudice thinking we don’t see the full value and potential of all the avenues God may use. We might even think to ourselves that God would never do it that way—especially if that way requires some work or effort on our part that we are not willing to give! We might find that the very thing we don’t think will happen will be exactly what God wants to do to bring our answer to prayer! Unrealistic thinking Another thing that can hinder our prayers is unrealistic thinking. This is when we apply the principal of sowing and reaping but we are trusting God to multiply our seed beyond the potential (even the supernatural potential) of the seed. We’re expecting a ‘super harvest’ but we haven’t planted ‘super seed.’ There is a price to pay for a super harvest. Are we willing to sow super seed? We want our seed to be extremely valuable, not realizing that there is work involved to make that seed as valuable as we want it to be. There’s work involved to get that super harvest we want—or are expecting to get. We throw a few dollars in the offering at church and expect God to clear up all our financial woes. We spend a few minutes a week with our kids or our spouses and we expect to have great relationships. We show up for church once or twice a month and expect to be given a position of honor. We spend half our time at work on personal business and then expect to get a promotion. We think because we’re giving a little bit here and there that we’re going to reap a huge harvest of blessing in our life. In reality, we need to check our heart for laziness and impatience. Unrealistic thinking is when we expect 20 acres of harvest when we’ve planted ½ acre of seed. Now if all you have is ½ acre of seed then go ahead and plant it. Don’t get discouraged or feel guilty if you see you have a long way to go. We can’t allow the journey ahead of us to overwhelm us. But at least start where you are. Whether we tend to limit God in our thinking or have unrealistic expectations, we need to understand that God can bless His people whenever He wants to. I’m not saying that God will never go beyond the strongholds we have set up in our minds. But His desire is for us to have an understanding of how His Kingdom works and get rid of the strongholds of thinking that are contrary to His ways. If He just kept blessing us regardless of what we do then that would end up doing us more harm than good. There’s a super harvest waiting for all of us, ask God to show you how to plant super seed. |
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