I am going to share some of my personal experiences regarding including God. Sometimes I don't know when I'm testifying and when I'm bragging. I hope that what I'm doing here is simply testifying in an effort to embolden you to include God in every detail of your life. I am heartened by the words found in Proverbs which tell us that if we trust God and acknowledge Him "in all of our ways," that He will direct our paths (see Proverbs 3:5,6). This simply means, include Him in everything and He will influence the outcomes. The New Testament gives us similar direction. In the words of Peter the Apostle, we are admonished: "Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you" (1 Peter 5:7 NLT). How do I determine what to invite God into? It's simple. If something is troubling to me, I invite Him into that. I remind myself: there is no problem too big that He cannot help me and no problem so small that He doesn't care to help me.
I am giving you a sampling from my own life of things that I ask Him to help me with. I've been doing this for almost 48 years and He has always done something in response to these invitations that encourages me. I ask God to help me (this is not an exhaustive list!):
- Overcome temptation.
- Taste and see that He is as good as advertised.
- Receive healing for my psychological and physical ailments (I get very specific).
- Trust Him to provide for my financial needs and my material wants.
- Manage money well so that I can be entrusted with the true riches of His Kingdom (see Luke 16:10).
- Forgive people who have hurt me from my heart.
- To learn challenging things (in college, seminary and beyond).
- Have a mutually fulfilling sex life for my wife and me.
- Learn to live one day and one moment at a time.
I have also felt invited by Him to vent to Him about what frustrates me. He and I talk a lot about everything. If I'm anxious about a challenge, like handling a conflict well, I'll ask Him to help me find my way, to see the log in my own eye and to be able to listen and truly hear another person's point of view. I am not the person I want to me, but I'm a better person than I'd be if I didn't experience His influence!
Is there any area where you have been excluding God? If so, why? What's keeping you from inviting Him into that thing? I'll bet that some type of breakthrough awaits you.