I had a bit of a rant on Thursday night on Twitter and Facebook after reading several posts some Christian friends had posted in their timeline on Facebook. I ended up apologising later for my comments as I receiving several private messages from others who accused me of dismissing things which others felt were important to them, just because I felt they weren’t important – this couldn’t have been further from the truth or further from the reason for my rant in the first place!
I do know and do understand that we all consider different things to be important and meaningful to us and this wasn’t the part that annoyed me about the original posts. What annoyed me was actually the wording of the posts, where they described what can only be considered to be standard life events and therefore, in my opinion, their comments were very over the top.
Had you not read the whole posts made by these people, you would have thought they had received some life threatening or life altering news, when in fact, the events referred to were only ones which, would affect their lives…but only to the extent of giving them a little more work to do on a daily basis and would require a bit more planning from them, not the significant life changing impact implied by their pleads for our thoughts/prayers for them.
Sorry this all sounds a bit cryptic, but I obviously don’t want to be too specific about the posts I’m referring to as I certainly do not want to upset/annoy anyone anymore than I may already have done.
My main objection to their posts was actually that they wanted us to pray for a specific outcome to an event as any other outcome would make things very difficult for them. I should explain that the posts I’m referring to were made by Christians, and therefore I have to question why were they asking us to pray for an outcome they wanted to a specific event? i.e. Was the outcome they desired actually God’s plan for their lives or simply their own plans/desires, because the outcome they wanted would make their life easier?
Maybe I just found all this annoying because I’m feeling so emotional and sensitive just now as I’m still trying to come to terms with the bereavement of two close family members since the end of February, plus several other major issues/concerns. Yes, I maybe shouldn’t have reacted as I did in such a public forum, but the posts just seem to be such a kick in the teeth to the many people we all know of, who are having to cope with major life changing or life threatening events in their lives…and what about all those in this world who find it a daily struggle to feed, clothe and put a roof over the heads of those they love!
The bottom line is, choose your words carefully when you are looking for support from others, as pleading for prayerful support for situations where God’s plan in your life seems to have been completely forgotten or ignored, is not the way prayer should be utilised. Pray for God’s will to be done in your life, not plead with God to allow your desires to be granted.
Let’s make sure we talk to God about His plans for our lives, accept His plans and not plead with Him to chance His plans just because it suits us better.
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