Babel and Blessing

"Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."

But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building.The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other." So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel —because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth." Genesis 11:1-9

Why don't we pray? Because we don't believe God is generous and wants the best for us. We feel like praying is wasting time when you could be getting on and sorting it out. The truth is we desire control. So much that we think we need to snatch and grab things out of God's closed fist.

God's hand is open.

All He asks us to do is receive what He is freely giving us. Read on from Genesis 11 where people want to "make a name for themselves" and you get to Genesis 12:1-3:

The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.
"I will make you into a great nation
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you."

The people at Babel thought they had to make a name for themselves...something God freely offers in the following chapter.

Why don't we pray? Because we think we need to do things ourselves...not the case. God's hand is open.