He waited in the after-worship line to speak to me -- to lodge, as it were, a complaint. It stemmed from the fact that in the previous Sunday's "Prayers of the People" I had prayed for snow. I confess that, on that score, it had been more "Prayers of this Person" rather than "People." A week later, my prayers were being answered. And thus the impetus for his complaint. "I've been praying all this time for 50 degrees, and one little time you pray for snow and all my efforts are for nothing. I see who gets heard."
Prayer is, I'll have to agree, a mysterious and even dangerous thing. Years ago, Garth Brooks looked around at the goodness of his life, reflected on all the times he had asked God for the success of relationships that would have led to very different ends, and thanked God for "unanswered prayers." I might quibble with the word "unanswered" -- "no", after all, is an answer -- but I understand what he was getting at. I think about all the dumb, self-centered, short-sighted things for which I've prayed -- earnestly, desperately -- and today give just as earnest thanks that I didn't get my way.
Neither my friend in his after-worship complaint, nor me in my during-worship supplication was being theologically serious. Neither one of us imagined God actually giving our climatic preferences real consideration. But it does give me pause to consider more carefully those elements more authentically offered in prayer. The older I get, the more I realize how little I comprehend what is best for me -- to say nothing of the world around me. To pray for specific turns of events seems a little presumptious.
But some prayers seem safe -- for peace, for example; for courage and faith and the strength to forgive; for the vision to see the face of God in others and the transparency to reveal that face, myself; for the will to love both neighbor and self in concrete, as well as philosophical ways.
And, on occasion -- just in case God might be feeling generous -- a dash of snow in winter.
Just teasing.
Prayer is, I'll have to agree, a mysterious and even dangerous thing. Years ago, Garth Brooks looked around at the goodness of his life, reflected on all the times he had asked God for the success of relationships that would have led to very different ends, and thanked God for "unanswered prayers." I might quibble with the word "unanswered" -- "no", after all, is an answer -- but I understand what he was getting at. I think about all the dumb, self-centered, short-sighted things for which I've prayed -- earnestly, desperately -- and today give just as earnest thanks that I didn't get my way.
Neither my friend in his after-worship complaint, nor me in my during-worship supplication was being theologically serious. Neither one of us imagined God actually giving our climatic preferences real consideration. But it does give me pause to consider more carefully those elements more authentically offered in prayer. The older I get, the more I realize how little I comprehend what is best for me -- to say nothing of the world around me. To pray for specific turns of events seems a little presumptious.
But some prayers seem safe -- for peace, for example; for courage and faith and the strength to forgive; for the vision to see the face of God in others and the transparency to reveal that face, myself; for the will to love both neighbor and self in concrete, as well as philosophical ways.
And, on occasion -- just in case God might be feeling generous -- a dash of snow in winter.
Just teasing.
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