How to get what you want

This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven … your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.’

Matthew 6:9-10 (NIV)

Have you heard of ‘manifesting’? It has been defined as “the idea that, through the power of belief, we can effectively ‘think’ a goal into becoming reality.” It involves “using methods such as visualisation (picturing something in your mind) and affirmation (repeating positive phrases) to help you imagine achieving something, in the belief that doing so will make it more likely to happen.”

I heard on the radio last weekend Paul McKenna promoting his new book, Power Manifesting: The New Science of Getting What You Want. The blurb on the Amazon website assures us that “Paul McKenna has spent the last four decades studying super-achievers, uncovering some extraordinary discoveries to create a revolutionary formula for getting what you want in life.”

No doubt there are useful things we can all learn about visualising what we are hoping to achieve, and imagining ourselves achieving it. I guess most of us do something like that subconsciously. But there are several problems with this whole approach.

One problem is calling it a ‘science,’ when other sources question whether there is any empirical evidence to back it up. Another problem is that these lessons have been learned from “super-achievers.” Well, almost by definition, what these people try works. But that is not true for most of us; most of us are not super-achievers.

But the biggest problem is that it panders to our innate desire to be God. Surely God is the only being who can imagine what he wants to achieve, visualise it coming to pass, and then have it happen exactly as he had planned?

The most obvious demonstration of God’s ‘power manifesting’ is the creation of the world in Genesis 1. For example, “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. And God saw that the light was good” (verse 3). God got exactly what he wanted, and the same goes for the other days of creation, climaxing in the grand statement that, “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (verse 31). Everything was exactly as God intended.

Furthermore, we are encouraged not to try and get what we want, but rather to want what God wants. It was precisely the temptation that “you will be like God” (Genesis 3:5) that brought sin into the world. Instead, Jesus tells us to pray, asking for God’s kingdom, not ours, to come and for his will, not ours, to be done.

Prayer

Lord, thank you that you are so powerful that you get exactly what you want, and it is always good. May I be content to seek your kingdom and to do your will. Amen.

Yours warmly, in Christ,
Chris Hobbs (Senior Minister)