Give It Over To God

This phrase is often thrown around in Christian circles and I'm frustrated because I have no idea what it means......

The context of this advice being given is usually to comfort a fellow Christian who is worried or stressed about something and not sure what to do about it. I know I've given this advice to people in the past and now I feel bad about it because I don't even know what it means to give something over to God myself. However to make sense of everything I'm thinking at the moment I'm just going to write it all down on my blog.

1. I'm presuming that it's got something to do with ceasing to worry about the circumstances and trusting that God will fix it for you - 1 Peter 5:7.
2. This implies a passive approach - that we don't actually have to DO anything to rectify the situation and that we just sit on our bums and wait for God to make everything ok again.
3. This also implies WAITING for God to fix things. (Personally I hate waiting) - Psalm 37:7
4. It implies God WILL fix things. Otherwise why give it over to him? - Matthew 7:7-8, Psalm 37:4, Matthew 21:22
5. If we're not worrying about it, then we must be at peace - Philippians 4:6-7.

Ok, now here are the problems I have with this advice...
1. How do you STOP worrying about something? I know I want to stop worrying about various things but it's not that easy to put into practice. What about people that have been praying for things for years - the unemployed person praying for a job, the wrongly imprisoned person praying for freedom, the single person praying for a spouse, the childless couple praying for a child, the person praying for the salvation of their unsaved friends and family... These are big issues in people's lives. How are they just meant to stop worrying about it and switch off their worry like a tap? Does the Spirit help us?

2. If we take the passive approach and sit on our bums waiting for God to act, doesn't that mean we might miss out? When do we wait and when should we be proactive? For example, a guy sees a top Christian woman and thinks he wants to be with her but someone tells him to "give it over to God". So he sits and waits thinking God will give him in this woman when the time is right. Time goes on, he never approaches her and eventually this woman marries someone else. The man is devastated. Isn't this an example of how it "giving it over to God" SHOULDN'T be applied?

3. As I mentioned above, 'giving it over to God' implies that he will take care of it and give us what we want. But what if he doesn't? Sometimes people pray for something for years and never get it. Or they have to wait a ridiculously long time and in the meantime grow more bitter, disappointed and often angry at God. It's easy to take a spectator's view and say to them "Oh well, God knows best. You can't expect to get everything. It obviously wouldn't be best for you to have this thing." Maybe we can't expect God to give us everything we want but this stuff really HURTS.

I couldn't talk about 'giving it over to God' without touching on the topic of prayer. Prayer is how we talk to God about our joys and frustrations and ask him for things. I don't know about you but I used to find stories of God granting people the desires of their hearts to be refreshing and encouraging. Now I don't.

It's tempting to look for the Hollywood ending. Cinderella finally gets her Prince and everything turns out good in the end. Even the Bible is full of those stories. Job loses everything but gets even more back. Hannah finally has a son. And we hear these stories in people's lives. In one sense, I am encouraged because it shows that God is good and loves to give good gifts to his children. And it's easy to overlook the years of hardship, suffering and waiting the person had to endure before they got what they'd been praying for because in the end everything turned out all right for them. But it doesn't always work like that. I know I've been praying for things for years, only to people with the same prayers get their prayers answered. I think, "it's not fair God". I don't begrudge people these things, it's just that I want them too. And it's hard to understand why God gave it to them and not me. I think, "well that's very nice that you gave it to that person, but what about me?"

This leads onto something else. I feel convicted of trying to manipulate God in prayer. Like if I pray a certain way, use certain words or copy the prayer of someone who got their prayer answered, God will give me what I want too. Now I know he doesn't work like that (sorry God). A few years ago, a friend shared with me how she had been praying for something specific but God had not given it to her. In the end, she stopped praying for it and instead asked God to do his will. And he did. A short time later and she got what she'd been praying for. I thought this was great so I prayed that God would do his will for me too, thinking that he'd give me what I'd secretly been wanting. But he hasn't and I've learnt that his will for her life is obviously very different from mine. So maybe he IS doing his will in my life, it's just not what I WANT.

Are we committing idolatry for wanting things too badly? For ages, I couldn't understand how two desperate people could throw themselves at God's feet and beg for something in prayer - and he'd give it to one but not the other. Surely if one person was being idolaterous for wanting something too much, then the other was too? So why give it one but not both or neither?

In Christian circles, it's often said that there are two types of prayers - 'red ferrari' prayers (praying for material possessions) and 'Hannah' prayers (ie. praying for a child, spouse, unsaved friends). Personally I don't think the categories can be so neat. Maybe it depends on our motivation for wanting it.

What does 'giving it over to God' look like in prayer? Over the years, I've heard many examples (yes, those 'encouraging' stories again).
1. Some people stop praying for something because it's on their mind so much and refuse to talk to God about it again. Instead they just pray about other things.
2. Others pray continuously (like the persistent widow or the PUSH bracelets - Pray Until Something Happens).

From both examples, I've had people say they got what they wanted. It's like they're advocating this as a sure fire way of getting what you want from God. But, as I've said before, God doesn't always give us what we want. Option 1 is often advised as being the best way, yet I was reading 1 Samuel 1 the other day and Hannah prayed and wept and asked God to remember her - and eventually God opened her womb and she had Samuel. I've tried not praying, praying desperately, crying, yelling at God - nothing has worked. I don't want to try and manipulate him anymore. I just want to trust him.

It probably all comes down to the fact that every time I pray, I assume God is going to say no. Lately he just keeps shutting very door I try to go through. Don't we get all surprised when God does give us what we want (Acts 12:1-19). I feel it's so drummed into my head that he'll say "no" or "wait" that I hardly ever expect him to say "yes" anymore.

I know life won't always be comfortable on this earth as a follower of Christ. I just want God to hold to his promises that he loves to give good gifts to his children and bless them - that it won't necessarily all be doom and gloom on earth while we wait. And I want to trust him and be glad. I guess contentment has to be learned (Philippians 4:11-13). My prayer is Psalm 13:1. How long O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?

What do you think 'giving it over to God' means and how does it look on a practical level?