While I wholeheartedly believe the following verse to be true, I find myself in great conflict in my present situation. I say this because I often wonder is this why i am miserable.
Hitherto have ye asked nothing in My Name: ask and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.
John 16:24
Added to this I read in II Corinthians 1:19-22 in Christ Jesus, Paul states is not yea and nay, but just yea. What i am saying is in over 40 years not sure anything I truly desired and prayed for was ever answered yes. One thing (beside wanting a mate) is a good job. While yes I have a job; treatment is good but pay leaves a lot to be desired. This plus other major issues have me totally wondering why ask, if when it truly my hearts desire God at least seems to say NO! what has happen to my joy and the yea Paul assured the Believers will receive?
Everytime that we say that we don't think God will answer our prayers, we are strengthening our doubt. It builds itself into a mountain that mocks our faith. We can't be passive, we oughta have the attitude toward that doubt, 'okay buddy you're asking for it now. You challenge me? You challenge my faith? You're cruisin for a bruisin because you can't handle faith. This is the victory that overcomes doubt, it is my faith!'
We ought to at least do that as we do when the person we're discussing a Bible topic with on this forum who happens to not agree with us. Yes with people we're supposed to curb any upset emotions and watch our p's and q's but we are not to be nice and polite when entering into a fight of faith against thoughts of doubt.
A good remedy to build up our faith and at the same time eliminate all doubts.. Did you ever hear the song - Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, latch on to the affirmative and don't mess with mr. in between etc
We are to ask in faith, believing that we receive. We get our faith built up by repeating God's promises to ourselves. We are to do what God told Joshua to do. Meditate the word day and night. Meditate means say to yourself what the word of God says. The negative side is to worry by speaking your doubts to yourself and others.
Your opening words are positive but then you switched over to doubt. So I suggest that you practice saying throughout your day the words you used at the opening of your post, but keep it positive. "I wholeheartedly believe that when I ask for my hearts desire according to God's will, I shall receive, and that my joy be made full."
Doubt exalts itself against God's word. We are to bring every disobedient thought into captivity of Christ. Jesus said when tested "It is written". We're supposed to imitate Him.
The doubt will challenge you and throw all of your previous doubt back at you. Be like a tennis player or a baseball player and hit that doubt with your faith and send doubt out of the tennis court or the ball park.
Say that you wholeheartedly believe that when you ask, your joy will be full, say it all day and everyday until no doubts come to your mind. Say it to yourself until you are ready to say it to other people.
Why do we have no problem with speaking our doubts to other people but we hesitate to speak what we believe to other people standing in front of us? Because we practice speaking doubt but are not practiced to speak our faith in God to do what He gave promise to us that He would do. Like Abraham we need to get to the place of being fully persuaded.
We train ourselves to know God's word concerning endtime events or other Bible topic so we can debate with someone. But we are weak in training ourselves to know God's word concerning believing for answers to prayer and fighting against our doubts.
I don't know if this helps you in some way, but I'm stirred up to speak God's word of faith against doubts that may come to my mind.
Have a good day.
