It seems like for years I’ve been praying for the same thing, over and over. It’s the same prayer request I make every day, asking God for only one simple thing that wouldn’t require much, if any, effort on his part. I don’t ask God for a million dollars, or a Lamborghini, or a mansion; what I ask is basic and humane. But day after day God continually rejects my prayer request, and I don’t even know why.
I haven’t prayed in the last two days, and I don’t think I’m going to be talking to God anymore, at least until he finally decides to answer me instead of ignore me. Here is what I want to know: Why won’t God grant my simple, humane prayer request? As I said, it’s not like I’m asking for material things.
Is God not allowed to be God? Why is He obliged to answer your prayer in the way you want? Could it be that He sees the bigger picture, the entire weave of all the threads of existence, and takes into account in His decision to answer your prayer this larger panorama of factors that you could not even begin to understand? Perhaps God sees that your "simple, human request" has terrible future consequences utterly unforeseen by you, consequences that take in generations and factors you can't possibly account for from your limited, human perspective. Given that this is always the case, that God is always dealing with us from a vantage point far, far exceeding our own, it is necessary that we trust Him - even when His actions make little sense to us.
Have you seen a young child with a dangerous item scream and thrash when the item is taken away by its parent? The baby does not understand the danger, only its interest in the dangerous thing and its desire to continue to play with it. The parent, however, recognizes the risk the little one runs in taking up the harmful object and playing with it and so, regardless of the outcry, removes the object from the baby. The parent is showing wisdom and love, but the baby only sees the loss of a plaything, it only sees its desire thwarted. Should the parent accede to the angry displeasure, the tears and howls, of the baby and return the dangerous item to it? Of course not. Such a parent we would say is foolish, and wicked, and unloving.
This is the nature of the state of affairs between us and our Heavenly Father. We are infants compared to Him. We are profoundly ignorant children constantly taking up dangerous things with which to play, clamoring for things that will ultimately cause us harm. And God shows us His love, not by giving us what we want (even when we stamp and snarl at Him), but by NOT doing so.
It is necessary, then, that we let God be God in our lives, trusting that He always does what is right and good, even when, from our enormously limited viewpoint, we can't see that He has. When we refuse to relate with God this way, demanding our prayers be answered as we want and thrusting Him out if they aren't,
we are the only ones who suffer. God is perfect. He doesn't need anything from us. Not one thing. If we all disappeared in the next moment, God would still be perfect, utterly undiminished by our absence. But we absolutely need Him - for everything! He is the Ground of All Reality, the Uncaused Cause of the universe. In Him we find truth, ultimate meaning, fulfillment, and the power to live as we were made to live. Without Him, we are adrift, without a fixed point of reference in the world, making it up as we go along, distracting ourselves with momentary, frivolous pleasures until we expire and are forgotten.
I realize none of what I've offered here is emotionally satisfying, but, regardless, it is the truth. Will you bring your emotions under the control of the truth, or will you let them sweep you along, this way and that, driving you away from your Maker and the meaning, truth and joy found only in Him?
