3 Reasons NOT to negotiate with God

Life is a humbling experience. Take this blog for example. I feel God is leading me to blog and express my intentions to be a real follower. On the first post, I laid it out there that I would be fasting a portion of the week. In reality, I have found myself saying, "OK, God. I will start tomorrow. Today I have ____ and, well I need to eat. please don't take offense, Great Creator of the Universe, but I have this one.". I didn't actually say THOSE words daily but pretty much actions are louder than words. Funny, me, the guy with the messed up life, telling God when the best time to really get started.

I have come up with 3 reasons why negotiating with God makes no sense at all. I plan on reading this aloud and to myself when I get the notion I am omnipotent.

1. Pride mucks up the water. Personal pride comes at a cost. It causes us to lose our humility and puts us in a position to become arrogant. We start expressing statements that lead with "I" and do not give the credit to God. I wonder of Dr. Phil would have asked Jonah, "How's that running from Ninevah working for you?" (I do wonder if it would have been more like, "How doest that worketh for thy well being?" to give it some KJV feel). Jonah thought he knew to avoid those nasty Ninevites  and his decision would work out best for him. God felt otherwise and just for Jonah, He added a bonus trip to the inside of a giant fish. We need to remember the simple verse in Proverbs (29:23)
                                       Too much pride brings disgrace humility leads to honor.

2. Rationalization often goes against God's will. This one comes up all the time. We feel God is leading us somewhere to do something special, but we go and get all rational about it. What about the kids-will the schools be any good? What about all of our stuff? The list goes on and on. One of my favorite authors Tim Ferriss has a quote about rationalization that I appreciate.
                Pure hell forces action, but anything less can be endured with enough rationalization

Action, or the act of following God's will may go against our better judgement. That is the beauty of relying on God to guide us opposed to what we can come with ourselves. Anyone ever felt the conviction of NOT following God's will? That feeling is pretty nasty.


3. Surrender to get freedom This really does not make sense. The old hymn says "I surrender all", not "I surrender just some of the stuff because I really like being in control". Not only does that not rhyme or fit any kind of musical meter, it minimizes the potential effect that can be exerted on your life. Hmm..should I do it (see 'screw up' and my picture pops up on Wiki) or should I let God direct me? No brainer, huh?


Negotiating with God makes no sense. We parents see the futility when our kids try and negotiate with us and I have never parted the Red Sea or raised people from the dead, so think of our futility and selfishness when we try to negotiate with Him.