Does God always give us what we want? That depends.

Does God always give us what we want? The first version of this had a slightly shorter title. Someone asked, after reading it, whether the answer was yes or no. This time, I'll give the answer away right upfront. It's right there in the title. It depends. This means, therefore, the answer is no! Without even getting into the condition(s) upon which "it depends", the answer must be no, since there is, in fact, at least one condition. Let's find out about that condition.

What you read above is my new opening, here in January 2022. Here's the original, from back in June 2018.

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Does God always give us what we want?  There are certainly those who say the answer is yes.  Especially if we have enough faith.  I got an email the other day with this passage from the Bible:  

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him. 

That sounds like God will always give us what we want - doesn't it?  The thing is - that email came from biblegateway.com.  Surely, this isn't what they meant to say - is it?

Is God really the ultimate gift dispenser - giving us our every desire?

Or is something missing?

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Now, here's the updated version of the remainder of that original article. Hopefully, I've learned something over the past three and a half years. Years where sometimes I got what I wanted. But sometimes I didn't. Other times I clearly got what I didn't want! And then there's the times when I got something out of the blue. Well, out of the blue to me. But not to God. So, let's see how this comes out.

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Does God always give us what we want? - Does the Bible say He does?

Sorry for the trick questions, sort of. The answer to both questions is no.

However, the quote really is from the Bible.  It's from the section the NIV calls Concluding Remarks, in 1 John.  Here's the passage again, with verse numbers included. Normally, I don't give verses without context. But, in this case, I am. For a short time. We'll get to the full passage shortly.

But! Here's the It depends part.

1Jn 5:14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.

Hang on a minute.  Did you catch the part about "according to His will"?  

That begs the question - what is His will? 

For some, it's whatever we want, as long as we have enough faith.  You can read about a sometimes claimed link between faith and healing in The Problem of Healing (or Not).

For others, God wants us to be happy, so it's whatever makes us happy.  You can read about the so-called "prosperity gospel" in Searching for hope – but not finding it?.

Just based on those two examples, you can probably guess that what we think is God's will may more likely be our will, not His at all.

Does God always give us what we want?

Obviously (hopefully it's becoming obvious at least) the answer is no - God does not always give us what we want.

We already saw that God gives according to His will - not ours.  But - there's more.  

Let's look at that 1 John passage in context. It's part of a section the NIV titles Concluding Remarks. As such, it sounds like just a collection of random thoughts at the end of the letter. But let's not dismiss it so easily. Let's see if/how they all impact our look at the title question today - Does God always give us what we want? That depends.

Concluding Remarks - 1 John

1Jn 5:13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. 14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.

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Here's my original comment on the verses from 1 John. It's extremely short compared to what I just finished writing on the entire passage for this update.

Oh.  Now we've added you who believe in the name of the Son of God.  Well, that certainly changes things.  I recently published Being a real Christian isn’t easy. You do not want to leave too, do you? which goes into some detail about the difference between those who have some measure of belief about Jesus, as compared to those who actually believe in Jesus.  The people in the latter group are the ones who do things in their lives because of their beliefs.  Furthermore, that belief is really based on the Bible - not someone's version of what they think the Bible really means - as opposed to what it says it means.  It's real belief - and real action because of that.

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Now, let's break down these verses.

1Jn 5:13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.

The first verse lets us know that what follows is not for literally everyone. I said earlier that there were conditions to the idea that God gives us everything we want. Here's one of them.

What we're about to read in this section is meant only for believers. And then, not everyone who claims to be a believer. Rather, for everyone who truly is a believer. Someone who follows Jesus in the manner of what that words we read as "believe" actually meant in Jesus' time. And, I submit, still means today. For more on that, please check out Are we supposed to Believe God, Believe in God or Follow God? I truly ray you read it. Sadly, it gets into something we don't often hear in enough churches.

14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.

Now we see another condition. Not only is this passage for true believers in Christ, but it's also when we ask anything according to his will. We're getting further and further from the idea that God will give us whatever we want.

1Jn 5:16 If anyone sees his brother commit a sin that does not lead to death, he should pray and God will give him life. I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I am not saying that he should pray about that. 17 All wrongdoing is sin, and there is sin that does not lead to death.

Wow. This is why we need to read the Bible over and over. And I don't mean speed read to check off the box that says we faithfully read it through every year. No - I mean that we faithfully read the Bible with the goal of learning about God's word.

I just noticed something in here that's never really hit me before. My head's a bit thick. Sometimes it's not easy for things to get through. But I've read, and written about, this passage many times before. And I've written about the subject of this passage. And yet, I never put the two together before tonight.

What the heck am I talking about? This: There is a sin that leads to death. I even wrote about that earlier today.

What is that unforgivable sin? Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Paul seems to include grieving the Holy Spirit. That could include, at some point, ignoring the Holy Spirit so often, consistently, and thoroughly, that we end up quenching the Holy Spirit. Putting out the fire, in reference to the Pentecost - the event in the upper room when the Holy Spirit was first given to the Apostles.

In light of our present topic, it may be significant. But let's just hold that thought for now.

Wow, again, Can't believe I never "saw" this before. Must be a reason for it coming tonight.

1Jn 5:18 We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the one who was born of God keeps him safe, and the evil one cannot harm him.

OK - this is one to be careful with. ... anyone born of God does not continue to sin. There's no way that can be taken literally, And yet, unless we take the larger context of what John wrote in this letter, and the context of the New Testament overall, that's exactly the conclusion one can reach. It should be taken as:

18. Whatsoever is born of God sinneth not reiterates the principle which has been stated in many different ways throughout the book, that if a person is genuinely born of God (Gr gennaō is used in the perfect tense), he will not live in sin (Gr hamartanō is used in the present tense to imply a life characterized by sin, rather than an isolated act of sin). John again plays upon the word born by using it to refer to Christ; he that is begotten of God keepeth himself should rather be translated, “The One who was born of God keeps him.” It is because Christ keeps the believer that the evil one cannot touch him.  ¹Hindson, E. E., & Kroll, W. M., eds. (1994). KJV Bible Commentary (pp. 2639–2640). Thomas Nelson.

It's very similar to what I mentioned about grieving the Holy Spirit earlier. At some point, even though we receive the Holy Spirit at baptism, if we continually ignore the Spirit's nudgings and warnings, we are headed for trouble.

That reminds me, it's a good idea to say something about the Holy Spirit here. That adds some further context to what I'm saying in regard to grieving Him.

Jesus promises The Holy Spirit

Jn 14:15 “If you love me, you will obey what I command. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. 21 Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.”