“Don’t bargain with God. Be direct. Ask for what you need. This isn’t a cat-and-mouse, hide-and-seek game we’re in. If your child asks for bread, do you trick him with sawdust? If he asks for fish, do you scare him with a live snake on his plate? As bad as you are, you wouldn’t think of such a thing. You’re at least decent to your own children. So don’t you think the God who conceived you in love will be even better? (Matthew 7:7-11 MSG)
If I’m trying to bargain with God it means I’m holding back something I should already have already given him and he already deserves. Is there anything I have that is not rightly his? Who do I think I am to even suggest he can’t have it or will only get it conditionally? If I have to save my own child’s bacon for him to love me, how satisfying is that to a father?
Bargaining works between two sides with equal power or where each has something the other wants but does not possess. That’s the whole problem with thinking I can bargain with God: we’re not on different sides. We are on the same side and we share and share alike. A bargaining approach with God is a fundamental error in recognizing he’s already on my side. My bargaining attitude suggests I’ve not fully identified myself with him. If I had, I would be resting in his grace knowing he’s working ahead to prepare good works for me to do (Ephesians 2:10) for him in the first place. I already want to live for him unconditionally. What else can I give?
Anytime I start to say anything to God that sounds like “If only you would do this, then I would…”, I need to recognize there is something I’ve not given up. If I say I will praise God’s name and bring him all the glory if only he acts, shouldn’t this be my normal course of business? Or if I say I’ll surely be obedient thereafter, what have I been doing? I should be at a point in my relationship with God where I have so completely identified my life with his that there is no difference in my affection and behavior whatever the circumstances and outcomes in my life.
My problem is I’m focused on the temporal aspects of this life and not on the presence of God. That’s when I start to think I should bargain with God, forgetting he will love me even better if I’ll just let him. We’re on the same side, remember?
Deep Questions 