Are You Limiting God?

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God decides what is possible for us, but do we decide what is possible for God? God's sovereignty is unquestionable; He orchestrates the cosmos with incomprehensible wisdom.

However, within His sovereignty lies a remarkable paradox: He has chosen in many ways to limit the extent of His involvement in our world in response to human willingness.

I’m always amazed by the fact that God has reduced Himself in such a way, so when people choose to have a relationship with Him, it is by their will, their desire, their choice.

His desire is that we intentionally — consciously — choose to co-author the human story with Him. And if we choose not to cooperate, His plans for humanity will still be completed, but we — as individuals — will not get to play our role in the larger human story.

What a responsibility! What an opportunity! We are privileged to join with God in bringing His plans for our futures and the future to reality: “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation … And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors” (2 Cor. 5:18-20).

So, how do we cooperate with God? Prayer is one of the most important ways. It is through prayer that we communicate with God about our willingness to participate with Him in His plans for the world, and it serves as our invitation to God to show up in our lives and aid us in our cooperation.

Prayer also serves as a guide as we choose God-made possibilities to act on. James wrote that “[we] have not, because [we] ask not” (James 4:2). The Bible tells us that many things that are potentially ours will not be realized unless we ask God for them.

The delicate dance between God’s provision and our participation balances — at least in part — on our prayer lives.

I’m struck by how often God says something like, “Seek Me and find Me” (Jer. 29:13) in the Bible. If you’re a questioner, you may find yourself asking something like, “If He wants so badly to be found, why should we have to seek Him?”

We can find the answer to that question in Genesis with the first human beings. Just as Adam and Eve were beckoned to choose obedience in Eden, we are also called to actively desire God's will in our lives. We need to understand that God is often saying, “I have wonderful things for you, but you have to ask to receive, seek to find, and knock in order for doors to open” (Matt. 7:7). 

So, ask yourself this question today: How many possibilities are not realized in my life because I don’t ask for them? And if I do ask for them, am I actively cooperating with God in seeing these things fully realized?