In the same week I was told two things that at first seemed unrelated, but were really about our expectations of God.

The first one was “You know God really wants you to prosper.”

The person saying it was well-meaning, but he was talking about making money and was trying to be encouraging to tell me that I should be better off financially than I am. I didn’t know how to respond.

The second was about someone else, but told to me. It was about a man who was very angry with God because his children had moved away and he had gotten ill. He prayed and prayed that his kids would move back and that his health would be restored, but wasn’t getting the answers he wanted in either area. He thought he deserved better; he’d been told that if he trusted God he would prosper and to him that meant he should be healthy and his kids should be around. The person telling me this story asked how he should respond to his friend.

What follows is my attempt to deal with both situations.

What does it mean to prosper according to the Bible?

Sadly, situations like this are very common. They have been from the time Job was written when his friends falsely accused him of sinning because in their thinking the only reason for a person to undergo the trials he was experiencing was because of sin.

It never occurred to them that God considered Job a very godly man and that he was honoring him before the hosts of heaven with the trials he was given. Clearly, humanity has problem with what it means to prosper in God’ eyes.

I realized that I didn’t really know what this meant either, so I did a word study on what it means “to prosper.”Continue Reading