Showers of Blessing
Several weeks ago, I was in a restaurant that had a large Plexiglas box filled with stuffed animals that was located near the front door. As I watched, a child received a coin from her father and put it into the machine. This money apparently purchased time for her to use a mechanical arm to retrieve one of the stuffed animals. I watched her try to pick up a pink lion with the mechanical arm. Failing to do so in the time allotted, she got another coin from her father, fed it into the machine, and tried, once again, to retrieve the pink lion. When I walked out of the restaurant, there on the sidewalk was another child, riding a mechanical horse up and down and giggling hysterically. I thought that it was interesting that each of these children could pursue the acquisition of their heart’s desire by feeding quarters into a machine that dispensed that opportunity.
Not that adults are left out of this adventure at all! We, too, can put money into a machine and have it dispense something we want or need as well. Vending machines are arguably the most important invention in our generation. Virtually anything we want or need to sustain or enhance our lives, we can access through the magic of vending machines. Think of it. Without any human interaction at all, we can now have access to food and drink whenever and wherever we have need it. Like manna from heaven, we can literally have food in the desert and water in a dry and thirsty land. Of course, the food might be a moon pie… a bag of corn chips… and the water might be a Diet Coke… a root beer… but the fact remains that we can have these things wherever we can set up a machine to dispense them to us.
And the variety of things that we can have dispensed to us in this manner sometimes escapes us. There are the simple hand-crank machines that, for a quarter, will give us a gumball… jelly beans… or chewing gum. There are vending machines that will give us the daily newspaper. There are vending machines that provide cold drinks … with the technology to keep them all ice cold until they are dispensed. There are vending machines that provide coffee… or hot chocolate… with the option to add cream… or sugar… or even some frou-frou flavor to make the coffee more interesting to drink. There are vending machines that will provide water to fill up our empty water jugs. There are vending machines in airports that provide travel necessities… vending machines that will allow us to purchase an airline ticket… receive a boarding pass… or check our luggage, as well as vending machines that will provide a luggage cart for us to move our luggage around. There are vending machines that give us access to covered parking garages and vending machines that give us access to toll roads. We can get our weight… or our current blood pressure with the help of a specialized vending machine. Yet another vending machine will allow us to turn our cash into coins, so that we can purchase a variety of items such as water… detergent… wax… a spot-free rinse… a vacuum cleaner… or anything else we need to improve the appearance of our automobile. And, if we are truly at a loss for what our heart’s desire might be, we can always find a vending machine that will dispense our horoscope… or tell our fortune to help us sort it all out.
Our text today says, “Ask, and it will be given to you.” Does this text make God the ultimate heavenly vending machine? Does it mean that all we have to do is put in our petitions… a quick prayer as we run out the door… and God will dispense whatever we request. “Ask, and it will be given to you.” How simple can it be? Can it be as simple as the old hymn says? “There shall be showers of blessing. This is the promise of love; There shall be seasons refreshing sent from the Savior above. Showers of blessing. Showers of blessing we need. Mercy drops round us are falling, but for the showers we plead.” “Ask, and it will be given to you.” A simple promise… one that is true… as all God’s promises are true. But a simple promise that is not so simple to understand… unless we first take a look at how God is different from a vending machine.
I know many Christians who pray faithfully each day and expect God to respond to their prayers… but some Christians expect God to respond in the same way that a vending machine would respond. If they put in the effort to pray… their “quarter” so-to-speak… then, God should give them exactly what they ask for in return. But God is not a heavenly vending machine… and God will not function like one. As I see it, there are four critical ways in which God differs from the vending machines that we might use every day… and I intend to skip over the most obvious difference… that the vending machine is a tangible, inanimate physical object created by man… and that God is a Spirit… holy… uncreated…omnipotent… omniscient… and eternal. But, for those of us who would pray to God and ask for things from God, there are four things that we need to keep in mind… four things that will instantly tell us that God is not a vending machine.
The first of these is that, while ordinary vending machines might dispense an amazing variety of tangible products… many of which I have already listed… there is a finite limit to the things that can be dispensed through a vending machine. Each machine can only dispense what is already encased within it… the products that we can see through the glass. It may not be the product that we want or need… but it is the product that is available.
God has no such limitations. With God, there are an infinite variety of gifts that may be given… and blessings that may be bestowed upon us… and God is not limited to the gifts that might be available in a given location. Some of God’s gifts may be tangible… but many of them are intangible. For, in addition to all of the things that a vending machine might dispense, God can provide such things as wisdom… courage… faith… persistence… patience… mercy… understanding… love… and so many other things that help us, as human beings, deal with the day-to-day problems of life… and cope with the unexpected things that might come our way. Sometimes, when we pray, we unintentionally limit the way in which we “allow” God to respond to our petition… as if we could control God’s response. Yes, it is true that our requests should be simple and direct, as Jesus taught us in giving us the Lord’s Prayer. At the same time, we must remain open to the possibility that another solution may produce the intended result… or that another result might be more desirable… at least, to God… if not to us.
The second difference that I see is that there are times when vending machines fail to provide what we need. It may be that the machine is out of whatever product we may need and, therefore, cannot dispense it. It may be that the electrical supply to the machine has been disrupted and the machine can no longer operate. It may be that our coin has jammed in the machine… or the mechanism of the machine itself will not work in order to correctly dispense the right product. And, there may not even be a vending machine at the particular place and time when we need one.
None of these problems exist with God… for it is not possible for God to “malfunction.” Are there times when we do not receive what we have requested? Yes, there are times when God does not respond to our petitions with the answer… or the solution… that we have requested… but the reason for that is not that God is unable to provide what we ask. It is that God chooses to respond in a different manner… or a different time… in a different way. But notice that Jesus shows us that God wants us to ask for what we need… and God wants us to be persistent in asking for those things we need or desire.
Sometimes, God has already provided the answer and we fail to recognize it. Do you remember the story of Haggar wandering in the desert after Sarah threw her out of the house? She and Ishmael were about to die of thirst, when God opened her eyes and revealed a deep well of refreshing water… a well that had been there all the time, but she had not seen it. The two disciples who walked to Emmaus after the crucifixion failed to recognize that the person who traveled with them was Jesus… until he broke bread with them that evening and their eyes were opened. Several years ago, a friend of mine who had been single for a long time married a man she has known for years… a man who had always been a good friend. She just never saw him as a husband, until events of that year opened her eyes… and his eyes… to this new and exciting opportunity. Sometimes, the gifts that God gives to us have been there all along… we just haven’t seen them... or we don’t recognize them as the answer to our prayers.
The third differentiator is that there is a unique relationship between us and God… a relationship that does not exist with a vending machine. A vending machine is a mechanical object that is not capable of having a relationship with us. A vending machine does not love us… listen to us… speak to us… or give us good things. It is an object that will deliver what we have paid for without thinking about the consequences… because it cannot think. If we put the correct amount of money in the machine and push the right buttons, that machine will deliver exactly what we saw through the window. The machine does not make value judgments over what it dispenses. It merely responds to mechanical inputs.
That is not true of God. God loves us and lives in relationship with us. We were created by God to be in relationship with God. When we make our petitions to God, God knows our desires… and our needs. God has known us…as the prophet Isaiah tells us… from before we were formed in the womb. And God loves us beyond our comprehension… so much that God gave his only Son to die for us… so that we might live with God in eternity. Would such a God give us things without considering the consequences… without making judgments about what is good… or bad… for us? Of course not!
Does that mean that everything that comes our way is a gift from God… and good for us? Well, the answer to that one is “No” as well! We must all confront the fact that evil does exist in this world… and that some of the things that come our way have their origins in the evil of this world… and are not gifts of God. As our text points out, “Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish?… Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion?” We are talking about our Heavenly Father who loves us… as a father loves a child! God is good… and what flows from God is also good…for God cannot act in a manner contrary to God’s own nature.
And that leads me to my final point: God has a plan for our lives. Unlike a mindless vending machine that is incapable of thought, God not only thinks about us… but also has designed a plan for our lives. And the plan that God has for our lives is one created by the One who knows us best… and loves us beyond anything that we can comprehend. But, the only way that we will learn about God’s plan is to be in relationship with God… to trust God… and to allow God to have his way with our lives... by giving our lives into God’s hands. In that way, the final stanza of that old hymn will come alive and we can sing “There shall be showers of blessing, if we but trust and obey. There shall be seasons refreshing, if we let God have his way. Showers of blessing. Showers of blessing we need. Mercy drops round us are falling, but for the showers we plead.”
The passage that Don read to us from Colossians tells us to lives in Christ Jesus, rooted and built up in him, for in Jesus, the whole fullness of the deity dwells bodily. It is from Jesus that we draw the example of how to live, as well as how to pray. His intimate relationship with God, his obedience to all that God asked him to do, and, in the end, his trust in God’s plan for his life, allowed God’s work to come to fruition. The next time that you bow your head to ask God for something that you need or desire, remember that God is not a vending machine… automatically dispensing whatever you request. The blessings that we receive come from God’s love for us… God’s plan for our lives… God’s vision for a future where every person will share in God’s grace and participate in the work of God’s kingdom. If we will allow God to have his way in our lives… if we will walk close to God… then we will find that our heart’s desire is for God’s plan to unfold in our lives… and in the life of this church. And, when we pray, we will know that God is not a heavenly vending machine that will dispense whatever we request. Instead, God will provide for our needs from the unlimited resources available at his disposal… with full knowledge of the ideal solution… not only for us, but for others who may be affected as well. Which is why the last words of our prayer should always be… “Thy will, O Lord… not mine… be done.” Amen.