PROBLEM WORSHIP

Some time back I did a presentation entitled TAKE HEART and sent it to my broadcast list and mailing list which my elder sister is part of. After listening to it, this is what she said and had to ask:

“good morning kid brother, how are you? I admit I love you and your audio messages inspire me, more so yesterday I had a moment of praying the whole of yesterday, and I prayed I made use of one of your audios and that was TAKE HEART, I have had trying moments and I was experiencing devastating situations but as I listened to it, it really uplifted me, it really inspired me, it really motivated me, it really did a great deal in my life; physically, emotionally and spiritually trust me. However, there is where you said that: there is when you get challenges in life and you tend to make them bigger than God. And make them appear like they are sooo [sic] big and you turn God to be smaller than your problems like he cannot handle them, if you don’t mind give me a scenario where we make them bigger than God. Because me telling God of what am going through is what I think am supposed to do, so tell me how we do that, and how I can avoid it because am a little confused…please help me on that. ”

To respond to my elder sister I have to take her through some Bible scenarios and case studies where individuals and groups were worshipping their problems instead of God.

You see, many people are convinced they are too bad for God to help them, or they have problems that are too big for God to handle. They seem to have more faith in their inability than they do in God’s ability. They seem to have more faith in the problem than they do in God. This happens when we focus on the problem, instead of looking at God who is the solution. As long as we focus on the problem and let it consume our attention, we will have faith in it to defeat us.

The Bible is filled with such, but I will for now briefly share four scenarios in which people in problems were worshipping problems instead of God.

In the book of Exodus chapter 14, there is a historical incidence where the Israelites are cornered on all sides. They are between high hills they cannot climb, in front of them is a sea they cannot cross nor swim across, and behind them is an enemy army they cannot even attempt a fight. Many a time, even in this day, when we are attacked and entangled by problems in such a manner. Notice the language of the entrapped in Exodus 14:10-14:

And when Pharaoh drew near, the children of Israel lifted their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians marched after them. So they were very afraid, and the children of Israel cried out to the Lord. Then they said to Moses, “Because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you so dealt with us, to bring us up out of Egypt? Is this not the word that we told you in Egypt, saying, ‘Let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness.” And Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever. The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace.”

First, they were afraid, which is not a problem, then they cried to the Lord, which is also the right thing to do, but in their cry, they magnified the problem and just shared their regret to have trusted the Lord and his servant Moses in the first place. We always do this in our prayers. They exalted Egypt and regretted they had served the God of Moses instead of the Pharaoh. Friends, whenever we are in trouble, we must be careful with the direction of our worship. And the attitude we hold towards our problems.

The second incident is recorded in the book of Numbers 21:4-9 and the Bible says:

They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!” Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. The Lord said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.

This time round their worship style is based and centered on what is missing. First, they state they are nowhere but in the wilderness, and they go ahead to say, there is no bread, there is no water, and the manna which God provides is detested by them. Now, this is not merely ingratitude but an act of exposing the failure of God and exalting the competence of the problems. It is a demonstration of how much the problems have affected their lives and how less the providence of the lord has impacted their lives.

The problem is exalted and as it is worshipped, it grows and upgrades to venomous serpents that start killing them. This is the problem with escalating our problems at the expense of the power of the lord in our lives. It just works like the law of attraction, the more we praise how bad things are the more they worsen.

Now turn your attention to the kind of solution that God gives, it is a FOCUS-ORIENTED solution just as their problem was centrally a focus issue. By the bronze serpent raised up, the Lord wanted them to refocus, look away from your existing problem and look up. Sometimes we need to draw our attention away from an existing problem and on-going pain and look up. If we don’t, then heaven deems that as Problem Worship. The more we exalt our problems, the bigger they seem.

Another scene in which people worshipped the problem at the expense of the Lord is in recorded in Numbers 13:25-33:

And they returned from spying out the land after forty days. Now they departed and came back to Moses and Aaron and all the congregation of the children of Israel in the Wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh; they brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. Then they told him, and said: “We went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. “Nevertheless the people who dwell in the land are strong; the cities are fortified and very large; moreover we saw the descendants of Anak there.” The Amalekites dwell in the land of the South; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the mountains; and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the banks of the Jordan.” Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.” But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.” And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature “There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”

The interesting thing about this report is that all the spies agree on one thing, the land was truly flowing milk and honey, just as God had said. However, the difference comes in at the point of worship, while Caleb and Joshua worship and trust the Lord to capture the land, the other 10 spies are being rational and statistically worshipping the giants and the opposition.

You see, the issue here is that the ten spies are right in what they are saying and wrong in who they are worshipping in what they are saying. This is how most of us worship the problems in disguise, sometimes when we cry and yell, we assume we are telling God about our problems yet, in reality, we are telling the problems about how our God cannot dare given the facts at the table. Too bad!!

I wish I could continue and talk about Mrs. Abraham, Sarai, who laughed at the promise of God of a child after her menopause, but time will not allow. I personally think it is normal and healthy to be afraid of our problems. What is blasphemous is when we sing, recite and bubble again and again how powerful our problems are at the expense of how our God is.

This reminds me of the three Jewish boys in Daniel chapter 3. They were threatened by the fires of this world but insisted their God would save them from those fires. They, however, emphasized to the devil this fact:

“If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. “But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.”(Daniel 3:17-18).

These Jewish Christian boys had a restricted worship. They worshipped one God regardless of the situation and were not willing to raise a different flag in spite of the state of matters. In fact, the Bible tells us that indeed they were thrown into the fires and all they did was to praise, sing and worship the lord to death. And we all know how this story ended. The Lord whom they worshipped and glorified beyond their fires, delivered them.

Many of us struggle with so many things and many of us are being weighed down by the trials of life. If you would just focus on God you would understand that these things are just so little compared to Him. Why do you think God tells us to be still? When we are not still our mind is going to be filled with so much noise from the trials around us. Sometimes you have to run and be alone with the Lord and be still before Him. Allow Him to calm your fears and worries.

When you think about a problem over and over in your mind, that’s called worry and belief in problem power. When you think about God’s Word over and over, that’s courage and faith in God. If you know how to worry, you already know how to have faith in God! You just need to switch your attention from your problems to the power of God over those problems. The more you meditate on God’s Word, and his past providence, the less you will have to worry about and the more the Lord will manifest what he is doing about your situation.

There are many Christians who died for their faith. Many martyrs were burned at the stake. They died while singing hymns to the Lord. Most people would scream in pain and forsake God. Take a moment to imagine them burning, but instead of worrying they worshiped the Lord. Many people are convinced they are too bad for God to help, or they have problems that are too big for God to handle. They seem to have more faith in their inability than they do in God’s ability. They seem to have more faith in the problem than they do in God.

This happens when we focus on the problem, instead of looking to God who is the solution. As long as we focus on the problem and let it consume our attention, we will have faith in it to defeat us. The Bible says in 1John 4:4 that: You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. No matter how urgent the problem biting at your heels may seem, God’s answer for you is to look up and focus on God’s provision. Have faith in God. God is bigger than any problem you face and can deliver you from any situation, no matter how bad it is.

Instead of thinking of how bad you are or things are, focus on how good God is and how things can be. This is not a matter of positive thinking but an issue of positive behavior amidst a storm.  The goodness of God is more than enough to overcome your badness. Instead of looking at what you lack, look at what God has. And remember He is your Father and loves you. Jesus encouraged all his disciples in these words in John 10:29: “My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand”.

The devil tries to get us to focus on ourselves and our shortcomings, instead of focusing on Jesus and His ability to carry us through to victory. Whenever the focus is pointing to us, instead of to God, you can be assured the devil has some involvement in those thoughts. As long as you are focusing on yourself, you are not focusing on God. You have to make the choice.

I know our problems are physical, real and not hypothetical, but we must understand that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against the principalities in space and these forces are not just opposed to our temporal welfare but also geared towards our eternal destinies. Paul reminded us in 2Corinthians 4:18 not to focus on the temporal facts in these words: While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. Stop praising and worshipping your problem, it is temporal, and your God is eternal.

God bless you; I invoke TRUTH, REASON, and FAITH

Am Pr. I.T.WHITE

The Gospel Hawker