I am a huge movie buff and I was watching the movie “Evan Almighty” the other day with a friend. If you haven’t seen this movie before, basically Evan is a newly elected congressman and God asks him to build an ark because there is going to be a flood.
Now, God often speaks to me through movies and TV shows. Something that really stood out to me was a conversation between the character of God and Evan’s wife. She had left with their children because Evan seemed to be going crazy. She asks the waiter, aka God in disguise, what she should do with the “God told me to” answer Evan had given her. The waiter replies, “ Sounds like an opportunity. Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If he prayed for courage, does God give him courage, or does he give him opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other?”
Earlier in the movie Evan’s wife had prayed for their family to be closer. God was giving them an opportunity to do just that.
How many times do we pray for patience and then we are surrounded with the most annoying people in the world? How often do we pray for something and we don’t get what we ask for but instead seem to get the complete opposite? I think that God is using those times to teach us.
Read Isaiah 48:17. God wants to teach us and gives us opportunities to learn.
