Why I Stopped Giving God Advice

    If I were ever asked to give a devotional, oddly that seldom occurs, my topic would be "Why I Stopped Giving God Advice".  The answer would be because He has never taken it.  For many years my prayers consisted of worry + suggestions.  I thought maybe God needed some coaching on how to answer prayer, so I would run a few ideas by Him.  I thought they were splendid ideas.  Apparently God did not because He has never once followed my suggestions, in fact, everything He has used to bring about the changes I prayed for are things that never would have occurred to me.
     For instance, when I prayed that I wouldn't have a migraine on my daughter's wedding day, as I had for several days preceding it, I never expected God to give me a 24 hour stomach virus so I would have to rest and the extra rest prevented a migraine.  Perhaps I hadn't been specific enough, I had been hoping for a miraculous migraine reprieve.  Another spectacular "outside the box" answer to my prayer was when I prayed to be able to pay off the second mortgage on our house.  It never would have occurred to me that on the night before the company my husband worked for sold, the former owner would get in a fight with the buyers, fire the whole department in which my husband worked, then rehire them, causing us to receive a severance package which we didn't need to live on, freeing up money to pay the second mortgage and then some.  That scenario never crossed my mind.
     Looking back on my 38 years as a Christian, the changes God has brought about in the people I love have always been in spite of me, not because of me.  Not only am I not the Holy Spirit's little helper, I usually get in His way. God didn't use the Reader's Digest sweepstakes to pay off my college debt. God grew my husband in leadership through being on the school board, his job, and through Bible study; I didn't need to leave articles on his nightstand or books open to the appropriate pages.  Nagging changes only me, and not in a good way.  Yes, I would really like to preach the sermonettes floating around in my head, but if that was all that's needed, why don't they change me?  Only God can bring about real, heartfelt changes and He does it in unimaginable ways.  Groucho Marx said he wouldn't join a club that would accept him as a member, would I really want a God who would accept advice from me?