What God Can Do, and What We Can Do

[Dan Crawford]

To my surprise, the church announced their high-attendance Sunday goal and then prayed that God would help them to reach it. I was only their Interim Pastor, so was not in on the setting of the goal. When I asked how they arrived at the number, the answer was that it was ten more people than they had last year on high-attendance Sunday. Why do we ask God for things we know we can achieve in case He doesn’t? Were they afraid to ask God for fifty or a hundred more people? Afraid that the God who responds to our requests, “exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask” (Ephesians 3:20), would not respond and thus they would look bad, like people of little faith? Had they never heard of the law of large numbers - invite 1000 people, 100 would show interest, and 10 would show up. I encouraged them to refrain from asking God for what they could do for themselves - then give God the glory. After all, which is worse, to set a goal for ten and reach it, or set a goal for fifty and only reach twenty-five? Pray big this week. Why not pray so big that if God is not in favor of your request, it will fail.