Gil Dobie wrote:Kind of goes along with the quote from the Bible, "Faith without work is dead".
If you are going to pray for a garden, pray with a hoe in your hand. God doesn't magically grow the garden, the person has to take some action to make the garden grow. To me, it's much more gratifying if I do the work and reap the benefits of some good fresh veggies, than not be happy and have a blank patch of black earth. Making yourself happy is taking that action that leads to happiness, at that point you are able to help others achieve happiness, which makes God happy.
This leads to the old adage that you can't help others without taking care of yourself first. Many a philanthropist have taken care of themselves first and later worked with helping people that did not have the advantages they had.
There is a difference between working for what you have or working hard to help others and simply teaching to people that "if you just believe harder, you will receive it from God". That is where they go wrong. You can't just start thinking harder about God's provisions and create them into existence. They teach idolatry, plain and simple. They don't teach about salvation. They don't teach about Christ.
With that said, I do believe they have small part right. God is happy when we are happy. As long as what we are doing to make ourselves happy brings Him glory. At the same time, God is happy when we are broken to the point where we have nowhere to turn but to Him.
To even think we can start to grapple with and understand God is beyond my comprehension. (I'm sure there is joke in there some where)