Name It and Claim It

Name it and claim it – it’s yours, is a common prayer philosophy. Although many of us would say this philosophy is not ours – we know the theology of prayer – we function as though this belief system was ours. It suits most of us when we expect life on our terms, we want what we want, when we want it. For most of us that means – now! We don’t mind waiting a bit, just as long as it does not take too long! After all we’ve heard it taught that God has three responses to prayer: yes, no, or wait. Furthermore, we’ve heard it said that we need to pray without giving up. I’ve heard it said that we need to sue God for a response – and that means a demand for a yes. We need to continually remind Him of His promises, and to most of us this means that we want what we believe we are entitled to receive from Him. We’ve asked, and now, it must be ours. Our will, our want must be done. It must be met.

What are those things which you have prayed for and believe you are entitled to receive – a yes response from God? You’ve prayed and now you wait. And, you wait. And, yet you wait some more. Time passes and nothing occurs. You’ve believed in the yes, no, or wait philosophy and you’ve been patient, you are still patient. You’ve done your part, and now God must do His.

Oh, how prideful and self-focused this understanding is. We have placed ourselves at the center of all reasoning and functioning – it’s about us, and no-one and nothing else. God’s purposes and reasons do not matter, they hold no merit – ours do! We don’t believe we should receive a no at any time, especially if our circumstances are hard and difficult. He has promised to sustain us, yet we don’t want more of Him, we want more of and for ourselves.

Is this true of you?

Can you accept God’s provision of difficult days for you – irrespective of how long and many those days are? Can you accept His provision, if it is a permanent state – opposite to anything and everything you’ve hoped and prayed for?

• To keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Corinthians 12:7-10).

• Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead (Philippians 3:8-11).

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