How many of our prayers involve asking or begging God for help with this or that? I can relate to those prayers as a pilot who commutes by airplane and isn’t guaranteed a seat. I have walked quickly through the airport many times saying the Our Father over and over hoping to get on my flight home. I have experienced many miracles and many disappointments, but I believe God has been with me through the good and the bad.
While it is good to ask God for help, we also need to ask Him, “What can I do for You?” We are all called to serve God and each other, not the other way around. We shouldn’t look at God as a genie in a lamp who grants wishes. Our relationship with God is more like a Father and a child. Children ask and beg their parents for things. The parents will usually grant the request if it is reasonable and is good for them. However, children also have age appropriate tasks that they are expected to do to help out the family.
We are all a big family with God as our Father. We should all have the mindset of helping each other and not just coasting through life letting other people serve us. Sometimes, helping others may involve us calling attention to something bad they are doing, even if they may not like us for it. Helping others could also be giving them our attention or it could be comforting them when they are depressed. There are so many ways we can help others.
We are also eternally indebted to God and there is nothing that we could ever do to repay Him for all the blessings He has given us. Even though we can never repay Him, we should always try to find ways to give back to Him. We should give Him our complete love, respect, and honor. When we put God first in our life, everything else in our life falls into place easier. It’s easy to put other “gods” such as money, possessions, or pleasure first in our life, but those will never satisfy us and will leave us empty. How many people in the world won’t even go to church and honor God at least one day of the week, but will happily go other places and honor themselves and their other “gods”? How many people try to change God to make Him fit their own personal views of morality? If I didn’t talk to my wife at least once a week and always sought to change her, we would be on the road to separation.
It’s common to ask ourselves before doing something, “What do I get out of this?” Instead, we should decide whether or not we do something based on if it is the right thing to do and not just the right thing for us. Let’s use Jesus as our example of how to live. Jesus was the most deserving of all to be treated like a king. However, He chose to serve others instead of others serving Him. Remember the words of Jesus when He says, “Whoever wishes great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.”
