When many people thank God for life, jobs, achievements, anniversaries, performance etc; what do they mean? Is it that they achieved those things directly through God or that God used them as a tool to achieve them? Many people mix up the meaning because they think God is still active daily in their lives directly controlling every of their daily activities. When some people, through hard work, diligence and knowledge achieve success, they do not attribute such to the previous actions that led to them but they rather reply when asked; It is God.’
Before some people commence any activity, they pray to God to win or be successful especially in competitive and group activities. Why do they do this? Is God still active every day and working and listening to people individually? Is God, like human also performing daily activities? Is God biased to those who call upon him? Does he bless only those who pray to him? Is success achieved by only those who believe in his daily actions? Has God not finished creating the world? Or are these done out of ignorance and selfish desires?
God has actually finished creating the world. Man has absolute freedom and power to control nature and his surroundings. All human activities are reactions according to the environment he sees himself. God has no favourites. All are equal before God. Our actions are determined by the environment we find ourselves. We can also exercise the power God has given us through many ways; knowledge, practice, experience power utilization of our bodies and its organs as well as talents and gifts adopted, inherited or learned.
Our life success and achievements and its pre-conditions are as a result of our individual or collective efforts and control, and not because God directly inputs in them and wants us to achieve so or not. Our thoughts and assumptions that God directly controls our actions minute by minute; day to day is out of fear and ignorance. If you make efforts, you would succeed; prayer or no prayer. If you did not make any effort, plan or work hard, you will also fail whether you pray to God or not. When out of ignorance some people believe in prayers and it fails, they console themselves by defending God, stating that it is his will that they have failed. Perhaps, because the right time has not come. God does not desire that anyone fails. He created success. Failure is just the absence of success caused by human inadequacies.
We have power given by God ab initio to liberate ourselves from such ignorance by being active and not passive. We can have full control of our environment with what we have physically, mentally and spiritually if available. God is far beyond our human activities since he has endowed man with power, knowledge and wisdom to conquer ignorance and fear. But if your thanksgiving to him is for granting man total wisdom, knowledge and power, then it should be universal and not for a particular action or activity. We are controlled by the power given to us within us and within our environment. God is not within his creation. He is above what he created and cannot be controlled or monitored by it. His creation rather evolves and operates around him as he had desired from the beginning.
