When God Reverses Men's Decisions

Yesterday my eldest son sent us his "last" message on Messenger before he said he'd commit suicide the next day (today) if his financial problems with Asian Hospital in Alabang are not settled today, July 24,2026. Asian would pursue their charges of estafa with fraud and have him jailed if he does not come up with the sum. He told us he'd rather commit suicide than suffer imprisonment.

Photo by Jason Wo on Unsplash.

It's devastating, to say the least, and hurts a lot for a father to have his son say this. Since he was a baby, I've been praying for him to be a dedicated Christian serving the Lord, up to this very day, counting deeply on God to have my prayers answered, and yet this is what happens. Since yesterday and especially today, I've been rattled. I don't know what's going to happen--I just know God can do anything. He can do all things, even make people decide according to his plan, or make them reverse their plan and make it favorable to your prayer. The Holy Spirit can make people at Asian take pity on my son and give him leeway on how he can pay in installments in amounts he can afford, in proportion to his salary. His sovereignty supercedes men's will and decisions.

Even stubborn Pharoah just succumbed to what God wanted him to do. He had no choice, although he had, but actually didn't. He gave us freewill but his sovereignty can easily displace it whenever he chooses. When we seriously consider the extent and power of his sovereignty we'd see how there's really no freewill--and still we're rightly accountable for everything we do. Yes, we have freewill, but we don't, but we do, but we really don't. Because that's how he makes all things work together for good to those who love him, and how his mercy and justice works. He can do all things for us, the parents, who intercede in behalf of our erring son.

Our son cannot pray to God and be heard because he's in sin right now, despite our many admonitions. We cannot force him to change, but we can intercede. Intercession is designed for those who cannot pray and be heard, or those who cannot pray at all. God has lots of promises and instances where intercessions were powerfully answered. And even Jesus and the Holy Spirit themselves intercede for us when we do not know how to pray. 

We're counting on God to hear our intercessions for our son. I'm sure God will:

1. Draw my sons to the Lord Jesus so they'll surrender their lives to him.
2. Always draw them to His Word and Presence so powerfully.
3. Keep my son from being imprisoned.
4. Hold Asian Hospital and command them to just take pity on my son and withdraw their charges.
5. Provide my sons good livelihoods, a work or a business ,or both.
6. Provide lucrative monthly incomes for my sons, especially my eldest.
7. Enable my eldest to pay all his debts, especially to Asian. 
8. That my sons live a life pleasing to the Lord and serve him.
9. Powerfully counsel my son not to entertain suicidal thoughts.

I believe these things are easy for God to grant, as his grace and mercy to us and our son. If you will, you can join us pray these requests. 

True believers can intercede for the sins of their fellowmen, especially their families, when they're in sin and are yet unrepentant. If they have a dire need but cannot approach the throne of grace, we who are able by God's grace and mercy can and must intercede for them, with all humility and thanksgiving.

Nehemiah 1.6-7: Let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel. I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s family, have committed against you. 7 We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses.

Then Nehemiah asked God to make King Artaxerxes favor his request. 

Verse 11: Give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man.

The kingdom principle is clear--God can make people decide according to his plan. Much better, God can make people act and decide according to how we ask God to have it happened. God allows us the privilege to decide what we like to happen in a situation, provided we don't intend it for harm. We can decide how things will happen and God will make it so. "According to your faith it will be done to you," [Matthew 9.29]. Here's another powerful word from Jesus.

Mark 11: 22-23: ...and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him.

Believe that what you say will happen. No less than Jesus Christ said it. It will be done for you. It will happen. The only requirement is "Have faith in God." This is the faith I stand on, founded on Jesus' own Word, when I pray for my sons, especially for my eldest--that God will intervene and tell Asian to spare my son and just take pity on him and help him pay his debt to them. My son is willing to pay. Just enable him.  

God can make people act and decide according to how we ask God to have it happened.  

The powerful King Nebuchadnezzar, a non-believer, also had no choice. Against his will, God took him to the wilderness to live like a wild animal. He did so. He had the freewill to refuse, but God's sovereign power overruled his freewill even if he was the most powerful earthly king at the time. He lived like an animal. On the day and at the time decided by God, he finally admitted God's overall sovereignty because he had no choice but to agree with God and obey.

Once a child of God goes to the throne room and petitions God to do something, he will grant according to the details of the petition. It's because the grace to approach the throne of grace and the details of the petition are all also from God himself. He put the idea into the heart of the petitioner. That's the Word being sent into your heart, and then you are given the grace to either ask for it in prayer, or to declare it to existence.

Ezra 1.1: ...in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm.

Look at what Cyrus proclaimed and did in favor of Israel. Look at how extensive his edict was, providing for everything needed. God moved heaven and earth to fulfill the declaration of Jeremiah which God put in his heart to prophesy. 

"And in any locality where survivors may now be living, the people are to provide them with silver and gold, with goods and livestock, and with freewill offerings for the temple of God in Jerusalem."

The same kingdom principles apply when we pray or make intercessions for other people. And this is what I believe for my son. I know he is in sin and did terribly wrong things to Asian Hospital. But God's mercy is vast and extensive, applying to everything in all creation especially when petitioned by his child in Christ, a child whom God declares to be a co-heir with Christ. He will create miracles and wonders to reveal himself to us--in my case, to my son, to glorify himself in his eyes.

Romans 8.32: He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

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My Son's Problem Now

I'm always, always hoping that with prayers my problems will lessen, if not disappear. Instead, they increased. Now my son has enlarged goiter and the doctor says it needs biopsy to see if it's cancerous or not. We're praying it's not. My son complains of pains in the neck and weakening of his body. His health also seems to fail because he gets fevers sometimes.

Picture above by Chunry.

I was hoping that the problems would diminish with prayers and petitions and intercessions for my son. It didn't. Everything is just plain frustration. Why pray when no answer seems coming. I have been praying for my two sons, that they become genuinely born again and become deep in the Word and in their experience of God and serve him. I've been praying since they were babies, and have been doing it daily. As they grew up I prayed for them and excited to see them know the Lord. I was hoping that what God did to me and my wife would be multiplied 10 times in our sons.

Nothing like that happened, and they're now young adults. My oldest son, the one with enlarged goiter, is now 30 and my younger is 24, yet in college with 4 subjects left prior to graduating. They still have no heart for the Lord or his Word. My oldest son's two baby daughters also often get sick. This is why he keeps losing his job. When his babies get sick he has to skip work and take care of them, often lose sleep doing it, and feel weakened the next day. His live-in partner supposedly has heart disease and cannot work or take care of their babies alone by herself. As a result, we often have to help financially, but we're unable.

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I have often urged them to get married, and my son likes the idea, but they do not have money even for a simply wedding officiated by a judge for lesser expense. I also suggested a wedding done by a pastor-friend of mine to further lessen the cost. But we don't have money even for that. We're broke, and I wonder why God's promises on provisions in the bible, which I seriously believe, aren't working for us. 

My wife and I literally live now on handouts from people around. We're given some groceries now and then and make that last until another bunch of groceries are given us. We look for things to sell and get our cash from that, particularly for paying bills. I try to sell health products online (been doing it for years now) but sales are down. I mean, I made only 2 sales, I think. I keep promoting on FB daily, but organic traffic is unreliable I cannot use FB ads or boosts because my FB account is perpetually banned from ads. A long time ago, when I was new to FB ads, I did a lot of errors FB didn't like. 

So, I'm really almost out of options.

Thank God my wife is employed as a school nurse at a grade school a walking distance from us, and it's really a big blessing. Thank GOD for it. We really prayed hard about it and God granted it to her. However, her pay is not enough for us because we pay our big debts gradually which makes her monthly pay almost null. I really have to make money, but being 66, no one will hire me here in Manila, and my only chance is to find a way to make money online.

I love meditating on God's Word and spending quiet times with him. I love it when I see his promises in the bible---and I believe the all---but the thing is, I want to experience them. Where are his promises? He says, I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Where is that? How come I have never had that, and I'm 66. I was born again in 1980 and entered full-time pastorate in 1997. 

Nothing.

I thank GOD for the blessings that trickle down to us, but what I want to experience is the plan to prosper me, give me hope and a future. The abundant life he promised. 

Debts and Possibilities

So here I am, struggling financially, especially with loans we have to pay, loans incurred by my eldest son's martial adventurism. He got his first girlfriend (GF) pregnant when he was in third year high school (he was 17 and her first GF was 15), going good for some years but eventually they did not work out. Then he got his second GF pregnant and this GF is supposed to be unable whatsoever to be employed due to her heart problem and because she has no valid ID. So my son alone has a job and I'm not really sure if he has one. Everything about him is strange.

But I still hope with my lil book, GOD's Word, like in the iage above. 

Our loan is somewhere in the amount of half a million pesos, maybe less, and we're hoping my eldest son would come up with the sum. I don't know how, but I hope in GOD that HE will make a way, although my son is not yet fully surrendered to HIM. At least I hope GOD will make a way for me and my wife. I've been a church pastor for decades (recent decades pastoring a small house church), suffering persecutions for HIS Name, and my wife has been in ministry since teenage years helping out with her parents' church ministries. Not that favor is by works or achievements, but I hope HIS grace would consider what we have dedicated to HIM. 

"Look, we have left everything and followed you" says Peter. Jesus responds, "I tell you the truth, all those who have left houses, brothers, sisters, mother, father, children, or farms for me and for the Good News will get more than they left". [Mark 10.28]

I have been praying and patiently waiting for "will get more than they left" for decades, but nothing has been "more than they left." I mean, we're in big debt and our small house is dilapidated and we short of beg for money from people. This is not my idea of abundant life. I love to experience getting sufficient supplies (or a bit more sufficient) direct from the hand of GOD so our indebtedness to people can stop. And if we'd check this out with Scriptures, this is how it's supposed to be--that we have no indebtedness to anyone except GOD, all our needs being supplied directly and personally by HIM. 

And there are channels ready if HE wants to prosper me. I have finished a lot of spiritual and inspirational (self-improvement) ebooks I am selling online. HE can easily make that online business sell continually, residually, and bring me more than enough money (more than enough so I can help others financially as well). And there's also our one-hectar ancestral land my clan is selling in Bulacan. If GOD works that out, it can provide us enough money to repay our debts and start a small business that I pray GOD will prosper. Then there's Jun's land deals (Jun is a Jesus disciple in my care) in Palawan which GOD can prosper, if HE wants to, so Jun can be blessed financially and be able to give money support to me which he volunteered. 

All this is in GOD's hand and decision. Everything depends on HIM. HIS Word taught me the extent and power of HIS sovereignty that covers every single event, transaction or anything in this world. Nothing happens without HIS approval. Even the devil cannot do anything without HIS approval. We are accountable for what we decide and do, and yet it all depends on GOD. 

BTW, if anyone is interested in buying my ebook on Job's sufferings, "Suffering as GOD's Favorite," just email me at liljob.me@gmail.com and I'll send you the PDF download and the means of payment. 

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