Last updated on August 29, 2020
Question:
I really have a problem with my height. It’s my biggest insecurity. I have prayed over this problem — either for God to help increase my height or help me be okay with my height.
Honestly, I have sinned a lot, and I keep asking for forgiveness. Unfortunately, I keep repeating the sin. Is this stopping God from answering my prayers? How can I get to be a better Christian?
Answer:
“Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content” (Philippians 4:11).
Few people recognize the trap when they put conditions on being happy. “I’ll be happy if …” What I usually see is that they still don’t become happy, even if they gain whatever it is they are looking for. Always something else comes up that they really need before they’ll be happy. What is really sad is when someone picks something they have no control over to control their happiness.
Happiness is something you choose to be. It is based on nothing else but your own personal attitude. Your height is whatever it is going to be. “And which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? If you then are not able to do the least, why are you anxious for the rest?” (Luke 12:25-26). It is up to you to be thankful for what you have and not make yourself miserable over what you don’t have. The reason you haven’t had an answer to your prayers is that you are asking for the wrong things. You are asking God to change your genetics, but there is no reason. He made you, and you are grumbling over His handiwork. “Woe to him who strives with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth! Shall the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ Or shall your handiwork say, ‘He has no hands’?” (Isaiah 45:9). And you want God to change your attitude when He already gave you the ability to change your own attitude.
But when it comes to sin you are approaching the problem wrong. You are sorry for sinning but you don’t take action to avoid sinning. “Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts” (Romans 13:13-14). What steps have you been taking to stay far from this particular sin?
I have a lesson I would like you to either read or listen to called Light and Dark. Then tell me what you’ve learned that will make you a better Christian.