He said to the king, “This is what the LORD says: ‘You have set free a man I had determined should die. Therefore it is your life for his life, your people for his people.’” – 1 Kings 20:42

Today’s Scripture Reading (November 29, 2019): 1 Kings 20

There is a severe heresy traveling around our Christianized culture. It is the “name it and claim it” theology. The basic idea is that God wants to give you all for which you are willing to ask. If you don’t receive it, well, that is your fault. You did not have enough faith. What you need to do is pray for whatever it is that you want and then live as if the prayer you have made has come true. By the way, the “name it and claim it” theology also preaches that God wants you to be rich. He wants people loyal to him to be in control of the economic system of this world. So if what you want is money, well pray for it and claim that truth from your God.

What is wrong with this theology is that it basically places God in the role of a “genie in a bottle,” or maybe an overindulging parent. It changes prayer into something that means that I get to mold God to the way that I think the world should work, rather than a process where I seek God’s will and then shape my world to his ideal. But what maybe the most damaging part of the theology is the way that we treat the faith of others. A simple prayer that asks that “Your kingdom come, Your will be done” becomes a weak prayer lacking faith because we are not asking for something concrete and something that we want to be accomplished in this world.

Years ago, I remember reading a book where the author was asked if he would pray that a father would reach his 100^th birthday. The father, in this case, was still in his early nineties and was in poor health. The author paused over the request and then said “No, I won’t pray for that.” There was a look of shock on the daughter of this man. I mean, isn’t that a reasonable request. Why wouldn’t a loving God want to grant such a request? The author of the book simply replied “I have no confirmation that your father reaching his 100^th birthday is something that God wants.” Prayer is not a magical incarnation that we sprinkle over our lives. Prayer, if it is to have any value at all, has to be a meeting of hearts, ours and God’s. It is a shaping of our will so that it matches his.

Ahab believed that a defeated Ben-Hadad could be a useful tool and that the defeated King of Aram could be used to secure his reign. But God knew something different. Ben-Hadad might have been a supplicant at this moment, but his nature was that he would rebel again, and he would cause much pain in Israel. In full disclosure, I have to admit that I know I would have probably made the same error as Ahab under these circumstances. But God had declared something, and Ahab had chosen his own understanding over that of God. In his actions, he was stating that his way was better and that God would have to mold himself to Ahab’s world. But that is something that God is seldom willing to do, for Ahab or for us.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 1 Kings 21