Monthly Archives: February 2016

Guest Columnist For Local Paper

The Martinez Tribune

In October, I started my free subscription system for people who wanted to read my inspirational articles. In November, I contacted my local paper, The Martinez Tribune, about submitting these articles for their Faith section. After reading some sample articles, they were delighted to publish them. Since then, I have been writing a new article for the paper each month as a guest contributor. You can read them at https://martineztribune.com/category/life/faith/. These same articles can be downloaded at http://www.rickhocker.com/articles.html. My intent is to write about topics of faith in a style that is practical and accessible.

Subscriptions

If you wish to subscribe to receive these articles, you can do so at http://www.rickhocker.com/subscribe.html.

When Faith Doesn’t Work: Targets Versus Outcomes

If you’re like me, you want a magic formula to guarantee that God will answer your prayers every time. When God doesn’t come through, you think that maybe you did something wrong. I didn’t have enough faith. My intention wasn’t pure enough. My heart wasn’t right. I should’ve prayed more or prayed differently.

No magic formula exists. God isn’t manipulated, no matter how hard we try to coerce him to give us what we want. We beg. We plead. We make bargains. God doesn’t play those games. God responds to our heart, but His response is according to His will, not ours.

If God is going to do His own thing, then why even pray at all? What good is faith? Because God does respond to us mere humans. As I said before, He sees our heart and responds to our heart. God is compassionate and merciful, and it’s our faith in those attributes that causes us to pray in the first place.

To read the entire article, visit http://www.rickhocker.com/articles.html and click on the top link.