Have you ever had your identity stolen? Do you know somebody that has? Identity theft has kind of become the adult version of a true nightmare in recent years. There is only so much you can do to prevent it. It can happen at any time, and if it happens it can do massive amounts of damage in an instant. I had a friend that had his identity stolen, his account overdrawn and it took months to take care of it. He struggled financially during these months because he had to wait for the bank to complete an investigation to take care of the overdraft fees. I have heard of more severe cases that took even longer to fix and at times it is impossible to eliminate all of the damage.
I feel safe in saying that nobody who reads this blog would ever steal anybody’s identity. We don’t want to do anything illegal, and we don’t want to cause that much damage to anybody else. What about taking credit for something that you didn’t do? Have you ever done that, maybe when you were a kid? I probably have more times that I would like to admit. Maybe the person who did it wasn’t around so I just took the praise all for myself, or maybe everyone assumed it was me and I just didn’t argue with them. I mean it wasn’t my fault they thought I did it, and I just didn’t think it would be polite to correct them. I wasn’t hurting anyone, right? Well, really, what I was doing was identity theft just not as serious as what I mentioned earlier. However, somebody did something good and I took credit and got benefit from it, which isn’t all that different from somebody working hard to get a good credit score and then me sneaking around and getting all the benefits.
What if somebody called you up and asked for help building a birdhouse? They tell you they don’t really have any clue what they are doing but they really want to finish it today. It just so happens that you are a birdhouse building machine. So you go over to his house and you end up building the whole thing with him standing over you telling you he just wants to see how it is done. You finish the birdhouse, examine your work, and it is a true masterpiece, if you do say so yourself. You go home proud of the work you have done, not to mention, satisfied that you helped out a friend. Later that night, you see him posting pictures of the birdhouse labeled as “his latest creation.” He didn’t even mention your name! Then, to add insult to injury, you find out that he was only building it to sell it. He just made a cool hundred off of your hard work and never even mentioned your name. Now, if he calls you tomorrow are you going to help him build a doghouse? I’m betting not.
Chances are you will think twice any time he calls for help in the future. I mean the nerve of that guy. How could he possibly think that was going to be ok? Well, the truth is we do the same to God all the time. We pray for a miracle; begging God to come through for us, and when he does we neglect to give him the credit. We needed to pass a test and we pray for God to help us out. Then we get an A and all of a sudden we are the smartest person alive and we forget all about how we prayed for help. Perhaps, you don’t give yourself the credit, but you just think you have the best friends in the world. I did that when I got my house. We needed to move from our Nashville apartment to our new home in Mt. Juliet. We were still fairly new to the city and didn’t know very many people. My wife was pregnant and we had two days to move and nobody to help us. My wife put out a desperate plea on Facebook for help and I pleaded with God that we would be able to get everything done. That Friday, two of my friends from Memphis came to town and helped us move. It was amazing; a 3 ½ hour drive just so they could help my wife and I move. Clearly, God had answered my prayers and sent two people to help so we could get it all done. However, I didn’t give God the credit. I gave all the credit to my two friends. They saw that I needed help on Facebook and came to help me out. Well the problem with that theory is that one of my friends hadn’t seen the Facebook post at all. Actually, he told me that he came thinking that we had already moved and was coming to see the new house. It just so happened that he showed up at my door the night before we started to move and, being a good friend, he helped us out. He gave up a large chunk of what was supposed to be a fun weekend vacation. Whenever I told the story, I always mention how great my friends were, never mentioning God. I never even mentioned that I prayed about it. Don’t get me wrong I do have great friends, but God was still at work in getting them to Nashville to help me.
Luckily for us, God isn’t as finicky with answering our prayers as we are with helping friends. If my friends asked me for help all the time and never thanked me for any of it, I wouldn’t be helping them anymore. However, God, in spite of us neglecting to recognize Him, continues to answer our cries for help.
So what does it matter? I mean God doesn’t really need the credit. He is God, the master of the universe. He will get by just fine without me telling people what He did for me. It’s not like God needs me to give Him credit. All of that may be true, but it doesn’t change the fact that He deserves the credit. The truth is when I pray for something and then don’t recognize God’s movement, it reveals a lot about me. I prayed but I clearly didn’t really expect God to do anything about it. I was asking God for something that maybe I didn’t really think He could pull off, which begs the question: Why was I praying in the first place?
Seems like a fair enough question. I mean if I don’t recognize God working on my behalf then why pray at all? If I don’t think God can or will come through for me then why bother going to Him? Making matters worse is that every time I pray for something and I give credit to the wrong person I lose even more confidence in prayer. I get frustrated thinking that God never actually comes through for me. I become convinced that it is my friends, family and coincidence that work things out for me.
Also, when we take the credit or pass it off to someone else instead of God; we are missing an opportunity to witness for God. We could be giving someone confidence by telling him how prayer works. Instead, we are taking credit for God’s work; stealing God’s identity and trying to steal the praise that should be His.
We talk about the power of prayer, but then we wait until the last minute to actually start praying. We talk about how prayer works, but so often we use it as a last resort. Have you ever told somebody “Well, there is nothing left to do but pray?” I have heard that phrase said so many times and never thought anything of it. Until my mom said that it shows what we really think about prayer. I mean if we really believed in prayer, we wouldn’t talk about it as if it was a last ditch effort. We would talk about as the preferred option in every situation. I could worry, I could call my friends to whine, I could throw a pity party, I could even sit around and cry about it, but I can pray so I don’t need any of those other things. I will pray and ask God for his help and his wisdom; trusting Him, and allowing Him to speak to me and work on my behalf. When we put the power of prayer first, and we think of it as the best option instead of the last option, I think we would be more open to seeing God move in our situation. Not only would we believe it could happen, but we would be watching and waiting expectantly.
Are you giving God credit? Are you stealing His identity? Is prayer your first choice or your last resort?
