Giving God an Ultimatum

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MarkoB0726

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Just curious, has anyone ever given God an ‘ultimatum’ and gotten some sort of response, good or bad?

P.S. Yes, I KNOW it doesn’t ‘work that way’, so please do not inundate me with comments telling me so.
 
Ok, so no, I have never and would never give God an ultimatum. Because, well, you know. 😏
 
No. But there have been many times I’ve pleaded with Him to give me a sign as to what He Wills me to do/what path to take in a particular situation, when I don’t know what to do. And He has always answered me.
 
I suggest you read the Old Testament. You will find many examples there of demands. Jonah is a good story, he got angry with God for not destroying his enemy
 
MarkoB0726 said:
Just curious, has anyone ever given God an ‘ultimatum’ and gotten some sort of response, good or bad?

P.S. Yes, I KNOW it doesn’t ‘work that way’, so please do not inundate me with comments telling me so.
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ya think?

A few years ago I suspected my dear husband (DH) might be cheating on me. I was so bogged down with housework, homeschooling, and caring for our children, some of whom have special needs, that I didn’t have time to investigate DH’s shenanigans.

Around the same time, I had to DNA test my parents because I was absolutely miserable over the family health questions I was consistently getting from the pediatric specialists providing treatment to one of our special needs children.

I told God that He was going to reveal to me, in His time, whether or not DH was unfaithful and that I would handle the truth of the situation with grace, dignity, and love. Same with the results of the DNA test, which confirmed info my dad had shared with me 2 years earlier.

9 months to the day after I had DNA tested my parents, DH left our family for another woman. I had found out about the affair the night before when he inadvertently bumped his phone and said “I’m caught” when I had called him to see where he was. And just like I told God I would do, I handled it with grace, dignity, and love.
 
GiftofMercy said:
he got angry with God for not destroying his enemy
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Dang. Just dang. I thought I was bad, but I don’t think I could do that. Like destroy how? Obliteration?

Maybe if someone were hurting my loved ones, but even then, the thought of asking God to destroy anything puts the absolute fear of God in me. I don’t want God to destroy nothing. Shivers. 🥶
 
When I was young and dumb, (or dumber) I thought I had figured out a foolproof way to communicate with God. I wanted to know his will about something, so I said, if the answer is yes, send me a letter from my city next week. If the answer is no, send me a letter from out of state.
Then I waited. And I received absolutely no letters from anywhere for a week, which had never happened before (this was in the 60s, I think, when people sent more letters)
My takeaway from that was that God doesn’t want to communicate with us like a computer, but like a rational being.
 
In the Lord’s prayer; we tell God to forgive us in the same way we forgive others.
 
No, never. Not even in my darkest moments did I ever give God an ultimatum.

I understand an ultimatum as a threat and not a mere request: do this or else I ____________. In the case of God, what would the ____________ be? What could I possibly put in that space that wouldn’t hurt me far more than it would hurt God?
 
CRV said:
No. But there have been many times I’ve pleaded with Him to give me a sign as to what He Wills me to do/what path to take in a particular situation, when I don’t know what to do. And He has always answered me.
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You are very fortunate.
 
Yeah, i did. Was driving 4 hours a day to college, couldn’t find suitable accomodation and basically said to God, ‘if you don’t help me find accom. I’m quitting college’. Got a great place, with really nice housemates within a few days. The opportunity arose after i drew the line in the sand.

Giving an ultimatum is not the same as threatening God.
 
I am not sure that I see that as God giving in to you as an ultimatum though. If you look you will eventually find housing.
 
There was some wry little indication that even requests might need careful wording! I skip the ultimatum technique.

My dear mother prayed “not to linger, and to die in bed”. She didn’t mention a time-frame or any future grandchildren.
She died suddenly in a hospital bed aged 43 after a miscarriage, leaving behind nine children ranging from four years old to eighteen.

Okay, God knows what we mean and need, but obviously I never forgot such a traumatic detail, and get a little specific with my prayers, even if the dear Lord still answers in His own way, (often hidden).
 
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When I was a child, I DID ask God for some favors, but never as an “ultimatum”. Those were simple child-like prayers, never something for myself, but only for others. Needless to say, nothing “positive” ever happened. Only later (much later) did I learn that God is NOT a vending machine, and that God cannot be “nudged” into requesting some positive result… If he wishes something happen, it WILL happen, whether we ask for it, or not. And if he does not something to happen it will not happen, no matter how fervently we beg for it.

As a result, I learned that supplicative prayers - ASKING for something - are futile. We need to restrict our prayers to meditative prayers, looking to get closer to God… but never ASK for something.

Any time I see some people ASKING for a positive outcome, I have to smile a little… and hope that they will realize that God is NOT a vending machine.
 
I’ve never given God an ultimatum, but I have reminded him of what he promised.
Most recent example was just this last month. We’ve been struggling financially for some time now, and this month was hard because it was nearly a week after rent was due, and we were $180 short, not to mention groceries, toilet paper, etc…
I prayed a rosary and at each decade, I prayed to God and reminded Him that He promised that for those who seek first His Kingdom and righteousness, he would provide what they need (Matthew 6, I think). I told Him that I believed Him, that He knew my heart, that He knew that my first desire was holiness, and that I needed $300 to buy the things I needed.

Two days later we had a check for $2,000. He outdid Himself. 🙂 (Shout-out to the Blessed Queen for advocating for me there, too!)

Anyways, like I said, it wasn’t an ultimatum, just reminding Him what He promised and asking for that promise as soon as possible.
 
No never. On the Contrary, we are to accept His will always, God is much wiser than us. Also, in time we can look back and realize that what we assumed was the best outcome really wasn’t.
 
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