Changing God’s mind
I have been thinking about what I have heard over the years regarding us changing God’s mind. I am not sure if that is the correct term that was used or not but you will get the drift of what I am talking about as you read a bit further.
While attending the organized church for many, many years I remember numerous times that something would happen to someone in the congregation or some other congregation and calls would come in telling the pastor what had happened or what needed to happen in different situations. Some were illnesses; some were tragedies that someone was going through.
The first thing that was done was to call the prayer chain. One person would be designated to call the others that were part of this chain and when everyone was reached it was thought there should be a couple of dozen people petitioning God on behalf of whatever the call was about. It seemed to be the general consensus that the more people called to go before the throne of God, the more chance of getting whatever happened to be resolved.
I remember having Saturday evening prayer meetings and the most people we could get out were 10 out of a congregation of 130 or so. This was of course discouraging as we thought that we could be more effective in our petitions to God if more people were present and joining together to get God to do something. Sort of like twisting His arm harder if there were more people present.
Just as a scenario, let’s say we called 10 people to join hands in what we then called a prayer circle and each one prayed for whatever the “circle” was called together for. We seemed to think that if the circle could only grow to 20 instead of 10 then maybe we would see results. Or can you imagine if we could have gathered thirty. Or better still have other prayer groups from other churches praying for the same thing. We would have thought that we could move mountains then.
But what about when the mountains didn’t move. What if those mountains stayed as steadfast and solid as ever? I guess we just didn’t have enough faith or maybe someone in the chain had sin in their life. Obviously someone had not repented of something. Note here that it is always the “others” that had some sin and never us. Something must have happened to break this strong communication we had with the Lord, especially when our numbers were large. Ummm….I wonder what happened.
I said all the above to say this. I am really wondering about this as a few days ago while in the bathroom shaving, something came to me very strongly. I am not saying the Lord spoke to me audibly because He didn’t. I am saying that what I am about to say was impressed upon me and it became very real to me. What came to me was this….the Lord doesn’t want you to try and change His mind; He wants you to let Him change yours. This thought stayed with me throughout that day and it is still very much on my mind today.
All the scenarios I said above are true. That is how the religious people look at things. This was the mentality that was ingrained in me by some of the preaching I received over the years. I never saw any results from those, regardless of how many numbers we ended up with. Am I saying God didn’t do anything because of those prayers? I don’t know if He did or not and I suppose it is not for me to say. I am just saying I have great doubts that we can change God’s mind on anything as His plan is perfect and it was completed at the cross.
I am seeing God change my mind more and more as time goes on. Is it because I have called dozens of people to “make Him do it”? No, He is doing it in His own time and the vast majority of the time I don’t realize something has changed in the way I see things until days and sometimes weeks after it is done. Can we really get God to change His mind? Some views would be appreciated.
