Make God Look Good!

Christian, have you ever wondered what you can do to see that God gets credit more often?  What can you and I actually do in order to glorify God?  I asked this question recently after an unusual dream. Here are some ideas.

• Don’t be afraid to tell people about your good works.  Jesus said, “Let your light shine,” which means don’t do good things and then keep them hidden out of false humility.  But the purpose is not about boasting.  No, we have to tell the story in such a way that God gets the credit.  That means we have to “connect the dots” for them as we tell it.  

We have to tell a story that shows both our need and God’s supply.  For instance, I have started volunteer work at a hospital by making crocheted baby blankets for new moms.  If that is all I tell people, it sounds like I am boasting – I must do this because I am such a good person!  But the reality is, I took up crochet at a time when my life had hit rock bottom and I couldn’t work.  It gave me an outlet so that I felt less useless.  Then God answered the prayers of many people and healed me.  Now I can become a “Blankets of Love” hospital volunteer. 

• Don’t be afraid to share your own weaknesses in the process of telling the story.  Sometimes Christians think that in order to glorify God they have to appear strong.  In fact, the opposite is true.  As in my example of the crochet ministry, if we let people see our area of need and how God provided for us anyway, we give them hope that he might do the same for them.

• Finally, don’t be afraid to pray specifically and then tell the story of what happened later in that situation.  Many people pray very general  prayers, thinking that this gives God sovereign leeway to do “whatever” is his will in the situation.  But that is not the way Jesus taught prayer.  It’s true that he did teach us to pray “your kingdom come, your will be done,” but he also prayed that a fig tree would wither up, that a deaf person’s ears would hear, that a blind person’s eyes would see, that a lame person would get up and walk, etc.   

How does specific prayer give God the glory?  People tend to take notice when a “coincidence” occurs. 

For example, if you ask God to heal someone quickly after surgery and then the doctor tells them they have healed very quickly, is that a coincidence?  Perhaps.  People will draw their own conclusions about it, but the closer the similarity between the request and the result, the more credit goes to God and not to coincidence. 

And if you pray for what is humanly impossible, for instance that the person heal without the need for the surgery, and the doctor later tells them, “I have no idea what happened – the tumor was there on the first Xray but now it is gone” – then everyone will experience a mystery.  

Human beings love a mystery.  Something in our nature seeks for an answer to it.  And the answer to the mystery is God.

Live life to glorify God.