What Color Is Your Bike?

Not long ago, my little church was challenged to stretch more in faith. "If you can see it, you can have it." It was very exciting. I know that God wants to do so much more for us than we allow Him to. He's just not likely to drop everything in our lap without us participating somehow.

Right away I knew what I wanted to believe for. I've been praying for someone to be saved for ever so long, so I thought about it and went on happily with my life. From time to time, I would think about this person being saved and believe it and thank the Lord.

Then the other day, the Lord spoke to me about this. I wasn't really doing what I was supposed to do. I thought I was "seeing" this person saved when I prayed, but God showed me that I wasn't. I had to go deeper. What does it look like when this person prays? What does it look like when this person worships? What does it look like when this person reads the Bible? I realized that I had been skimming the surface of that visualization.

I told a friend of mine from church about this and she said that she also had difficulty visualizing what she wanted to see happen. She was believing for a complete healing of a boy with a deformed leg. She said it took work to visualize what two good legs would look like on him.

When she said that, I realized that God does want to answer our prayers, but He also requires our participation way beyond the quick and easy. He wants us to dig deep, to be serious. Yes, it's going to take some work, that's the only way to see the results you're looking for.

Makes me think of a story I heard years ago about Dr. Cho. He prayed for a bicycle and waited and waited and waited, but it never came. Finally, in frustration, he asked God why did didn't get the bike. God answered and said, "You never said what color."

We need to be specific in our prayers. If we really want it, we need to tell God specifically and believe for it. I'm not a big fan of the "God, if it's your will...." prayers. If I want it, I ask for it and trust God to show His mercy on me if it's not a good prayer to answer.

Armed with that, I feel like a kid in a candy store. I can visualize all kinds of things to trust God for! If I can see it, I can have it. I just know now that the seeing takes work. The more I visualize, the more it becomes a movie in my head and gets clearer every day. I can even see that little boy with two good legs, riding a red bike.