The Greedy Grateful Christian; Thank You, More Please

Let’s set the stage. You’re making good money and you decide to take your family out for the ultimate dinner experience just because you love them. So you send out the invites, and the family group chat is buzzing with excitement. The day comes and you all dress up all fancy and make your way to the restaurant. You called ahead already to make reservations and because you know the chef you even had her create a special menu with all the things your family will love. You’ve got mum’s special diet covered, you’ve got plenty of meat for dad and you’ve even got the chef to make something vegan friendly and gluten free for your very annoying little brother. This is the hottest place in town and you’ve heard your family talk about how they wish they could visit if it wasn’t so expensive and hard to get into; so you relish the opportunity you have to just spoil them a little. This will be a great night. When you’re all seated and the waiter has taken your drinks order, you all order appetizers and when they arrive you have that first delicious bite and you suddenly know what all the hype was about. The appetizers are amazing! Is that a solitary tear falling down your sister’s cheek? She considers herself a foodie and is never satisfied in any restaurant but she has been rendered speechless. As you enjoy the appetizers, your family can’t stop talking about how grateful they are and how they are enjoying it. And when your niece has finished licking the last piece of meat off her bones, you all seat there in silence, in awe of the appetisers. You can’t wait to see how much they’ll enjoy the mains but then… they start getting up and gathering their coats. You sit there completely confused. They’re being grateful and saying all the right things. They enjoyed it, they loved it, they appreciated it and now they’re leaving. HUH? Before you know it, they’re out the door. It isn’t until weeks later that you finally gather the courage to ask them about that night. Why did they leave? Why didn’t they order the main course? And mum starts to talk about how she didn’t want to ask for too much and dad talks about how he couldn’t fathom making you spend so much money on him and your brother talks about how he didn’t want to seem ungrateful. Perplexing and quite ridiculous, right? Especially when you had no issue with the money and you were excited about treating them. I’m sure you can’t seem to identify with this scenario, yet this is what we do with God all the time. We pray for the rain and as soon as the drizzle comes, we are grateful and carry on with our lives, too humble and too grateful to ask for more.

I’ve been reading through the bible and especially through the old testament and rather than the fire breathing scary God we all associate with the old testament, I discovered an extravagant loving God. One who gushes over us with promise after promise. I see a God who was excited about a nation and all the wonderful things He would do for them. The kind of God who says, ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love’ (Jeremeiah 31:3) and the kind that plans good and wonderful things. Isaiah describes them as wonderful things, things planned long ago (Isaiah 25:1) God thinks nice thoughts towards you and schemes and plans on how to love you and cherish you. He has plans to prosper us, and not to harm us, plans to give us a hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11). He is the God who calls to everyone who is weary and promises rest (Matthew 11:28). He is the God who leads us besides quiet waters and refreshes our souls until our cups overflow; the God who prepares a feast for us even in the presence of our enemies (Psalms 23). I could go on and on, but statistics say nobody likes a long blog 🙂 Question is, if we serve so generous a God, why then do we not experience Him that way? I have received many answers about this from God, but today I will tackle just one; we stop too early. We get the appetisers and in some twisted sense of humility and gratitude, we stop there. We tell ourselves that the Lord gives and the Lord takes away and so we must be grateful for whatever we receive. That is true in many ways but I truly think that one can be genuinely grateful, sincerely content yet ask for more.

It was in December last year when God came to my rescue in a huge way. I talked about it a little on my instagram posts so read about it there. To summarise, the finance department was breathing down my back with an impossible deadline due to some misunderstandings and I was distraught and contemplating packing my bags and giving up on this journey. A few days to the deadline, I got an email from them that they had heard me out and had postponed the deadline for several months. Even though I had prayed about it, I was not expecting that positive response at that time. It was a miracle. I almost sat on the floor when I got the fantastic news. I was beyond speechless. Even now my ears tear up at the thought of that magnificent victory because even the head of the PhD program in my school had said it was not going to go well for me, yet here was God showing up. As I updated the people who had been praying with me about it, a phrase came into my mind. ‘Not such as this have I prayed for.’ The phrase is from a book called ‘Circle Maker’ (fantastic book about prayer that you should all read). The book starts with this story of a prophet in Israel during the time between the old and new testament, who prayed for a drought and at first God brought a drizzle and all the people rejoiced. But he remained where he was and praying, told God, ‘not such as this have I prayed’ and God sent heavy rain, the kind that destroys things, and he sat where he was and again prayed, saying, ‘not such as this have I prayed for’ and he prayed for the good rain of blessing and God sent it. The first time I read that story I was conflicted because in my head, it showed some form of arrogance and ingratitude. How dare he dictate to God how he wants the rain? But as I sat there at my desk processing the fantastic news, the phrase came to mind, ‘Lord, not such as this did I pray.’ I instantly understood that I could be awed and completely grateful for God yet still want more. The story that I told at the beginning was the scenario God gave me as I wrestled with feelings of guilt for wanting more from God. God showed me that sometimes the first miracle is an appetiser that should leave us hungry and desiring more yet we stop at the appetiser in false humility and leave it there. I have been studying the story of the feeding of the 5000 and I always used to wonder about that specific miracle. It seemed kind of unnecessary. I’m sure no one was about to starve to death. He could have sent the crowds home and they would have still been well off having listened to His teaching. But He fed them all. Then the next day when He went to a town people showed up in the masses and were even content with just touching His cloak. The bible says that all who touched it were healed. I wonder, could it be that the first miracle of the feeding 5000 was to build up the faith of the people? Because I’m sure that story spread like wild fire and gave a new surge of faith to people who needed healing. Yet we stop at the appetiser. We say thank you and walk away, happy to have been fed enough to fill our need for the day instead of being ignited in faith to receive the full healing we need. I wonder if we accept the small miracles and don’t understand that they are supposed to build our faith so we can ask for the big things.

I have learnt now to not stop at the small miracles and to be a greedy grateful Christian. I want all that God wants for me. I know that He loves to lavish us with good gifts and I want to receive it all. So I have learnt to say, ‘Thank you, more please.’ In between those two big miracles, was the incident of Jesus walking on water. During that time Jesus expressed sadness because the disciples had not understood the miracle of the 5000. You see, they should have taken in the message behind it, but they didn’t. It didn’t build their faith and wet their appetite for more. They just were grateful for full tummies and focused on the next step. Today I wonder, what are those prayers you’ve been too scared to pray? Did you eat the appetiser and go away before the meal and the dessert? You can be grateful, content and still want more. I guarantee you will never say a prayer that will shock or scare or catch God off-guard. Be grateful, learn the message and then be emboldened enough to ask for more. Thank You, More Please?