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God is almighty and for Him there is nothing too hard to do. But that does not mean that He will automatically do whatever we ask Him. He will do only what He considers to be the best in our situation. That is the wisdom of our Father who will not give to us, His children, whatever we foolishly ask for.

But one serious mistake is to imagine that if we have faith, God is compelled to do 'according to our faith' (Mt.9:28,29). So people try to make themselves believe that God is going to do what they want, and once they think they have 'sufficient faith', they expect that it will happen. At the root of this mistake is the assumption that our faith has the power to accomplish what we want, misunderstanding Mt.9:22. When we go through the gospels, we can see that sometimes the words of Jesus have to be understood as things which He said in specific contexts and not as universal truths. In the above example, He was only telling the woman that what she wished for was going to happen. Let me explain.

For us to obtain something from God, we must believe that He is able to do it (He.11:6). Unbelief restricted Jesus from doing miracles (Mt.13:58). But such faith is not enough. It must also be God's will to do it. When we believe that He is able to do what we ask for, we tend to think that God will do it because we have faith, or that He has to do it according to our faith. But He will only do what pleases Him, and no one can manipulate Him (Ps.115:3). Many times when we pray we do not know His particular will in our situation. We trust in His love and wisdom, and hope He will do what we ask for. If, when we pray, He gives us an assurance in our heart that He is going to do it, then we can be sure that He will do it (Ro.10:17). One mistake is to assume that since we have faith that God is able to do what we have asked for, He will do it, even when we have not heard from Him saying that He will do it.

Sometimes when people say they have faith, they only mean that they believe God is able to do what they want. They have not really heard from Him and do not really know if He will do it. Some other people believe that their faith has the power to accomplish what they want, and they think they have sufficient faith to receive this particular thing. But when it comes to something bigger, they think their faith is not big enough for that. What that shows is that their confidence is in the amount of faith they have accumulated for themselves, and that is not faith in God. If their faith was in God, obviously they could not have thought that there was any limit to what He could do.

If God has to do whatever we have 'faith' for, will He not be like a car which we steer? If it is our faith that will make things happen, where is the place for God? This is just like some people thinking that their words have power to make things happen. Power belongs to God alone (Ps.62:11). We created beings must surely recognise that.

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