There are many forms of prayer, but the form most people are familiar with are prayers of petition. We all need help and we are good at asking, begging, and pleading for God to come to our aid. However, we don’t always get what we want.
Many people have lost their faith, fallen away from the Church, and had their relationship with Jesus strained because they didn’t have an important prayer answered. Jesus said that if we ask, we will receive. How do we reconcile what Jesus said He would give us, to what we didn’t get?
While no father would hand his child a snake if he asked for a fish, the father also wouldn’t give the child a whole box of cookies if he asked for it. We may think that we know what is best for us, but it may not be what truly is best for us. Someone might beg God to help them get into a prestigious college, but God knows that their future spouse is in another lesser college. We may pray for God to help our trip to go smoothly and when our flight is cancelled, we wonder why He didn’t help us. We might have needed that disappointment to help us become a more resilient person down the road. Maybe, we would have gotten injured or sick if we would have been on our original itinerary.
What about when we pray to God to save our loved one’s life, but they end up dying? We may not know the full reason until we are face to face with God. However, we can speculate as to the reasons. What would the world look like if God saved everyone’s life? Death is a part of our world and no one is immune to it. We know that we will all die, we just don’t want it to happen to our loved ones. I can see where death would be scary if we believe that this life is all there is, but if we are deeply rooted in our faith of eternal life, we shouldn’t be afraid of death. My daughter died at only two days old and now I have a really strong motivation to do good and get to Heaven. In addition to achieving eternal happiness with God, I desperately want to see her again. I would rather her be here with me, but I am probably a better person today because of my loss. Even someone who only lived a short time can have a big impact on many people’s lives.
God knows what we want and need, but He wants us to express our desires to Him. Sharing our desires with our Father can help bring us closer to Him. We are better able to align our will with God’s will when He gives us an answer – even if it’s not the answer we wanted to hear. We will discover that God is leading us in a direction and when we follow God’s directions, we will discover that our prayers are indeed answered and we will find the happiness that we have always sought.
