Believe and Receive

I have been reading through the Mark’s story of the Gospel of Jesus and have found, as I often do when I spend focused time reading the scriptures, that there is a fundamental part of my life that I need to understand more.  Currently it is wrapped around this word “believe.”  So, here goes:

Matthew 18:6 – “If anyone causes on of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”

Matthew 21:22 – “If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”

In these two verses, two different frames of believing are presented: 1] the simple and easy belief of children; 2] the power of belief.

Why is it easier for children to believe the things of God.  Some might say naivete – others that the “fantasies” of God are easier to grasp.  I think both of those things are true – God, everything he stands for, represents and says could happen if we only believe, is very much a fantasy.  Clearly it is easier to believe the things of God are true as a child because of the lack of exposure to the “real world.”  There are many days I wish I was but a child.

Why must we believe before we receive -and- how do you go through that process selflessly?  It’s easy to ask for a new car, for someone to buy your old car, for a new guitar, or for the mate of your wildest dreams to be presented before you in perfection…It’s easy to ask God to do things for us, but oh so hard to ask him what he wants to do and then ask for that to happen, because it is often something that will cost us.

What is the good in giving some one something if they don’t believe you can give it to them?  It will prove that you can give it to them, but it would only then provoke them to ask for whatever they wanted.

But God, in his wisdom, knows that if we believe first, then we won’t go through the pains of serving ourselves by asking him to do things for us.

How much longer will we ask for ourselves?