What we want from God
What we want from God depends on where we are in life and what's going on around us. It also heavily depends on what we have been told God can and will do for us.
When I was young, I prayed for a pony every night because I'd been taught you pray every night for what you want.
It wasn't until after we went on a trail ride with my family at a nearby stable in town for a birthday gift to me that I decided I didn't want a pony after all.
The horses we rode were used to going on a regular, pre-planned trail ride where they followed the leader, always took the same path, and it was an unpleasant experience all around.
From then on, I didn't pray for a pony. I've ridden horses since then and had a much better experience, but I don't want to own one anymore.
Having a pony is way different from imagining having a horse like you have seen on TV shows or movies.
We usually pray for a lot of things that we may or may not understand the implications of - meaning that we often don't know what getting those things would do for us or to us.
Unless we're growing in our understanding of God, we don't think through the idea of prayer and God and such - we just continue on to interact with God as a vending machine or personal assistant.
It's not to say what we pray for is bad or wrong, but that we assume that the main point of life is that it is a struggle to get and to keep things or situations that we feel are good or best for us and that we have to convince God to help us with that struggle.
Those are some huge assumptions.
We often allow the voices, images, and the world around us set the stage for how we interpret life and even God and prayer.
It's not a wonder that we're not scammed or taken advantage of more than we are with how influenced we are some days.
Think for a moment about what you assume God and prayer "does" for you. Think about what you've heard that God promises from different sources.
In the Old Testament, God provided his people with a land, resources, and some guidelines and said "Go live your life with these ingredients. Work things out. Work the land. Follow these rules. Be fruitful and multiply. Be grateful for these basics."
He offered degrees of these items:
Health
Land or a place to live
Food
Deliverance
Justice & vengeance
Order
Mercy
Money
In the New Testament, especially after the New Covenant came into being, most all of those basics that God promised in the Old Testament went away - poof, gone, not promised anymore. New things came into being or were made larger. It includes things like these:
Mercy
Forgiveness
Acceptance
Identity
Love
Salvation
Grace
Freedom
Once the land of Israel and the system of law, sacrifice, and all that were "done away with", the old things that were offered went away - and yet people still talk like they're still promised.
Don't get me wrong - God can do anything he wants. He can heal and provide money and deliverance and so on. But how often do you actually see that happen? How "hard" do you have to pray to get those things? What prayers have you seen God answer in the way you asked for them to be answered?
If God did still offer all those things, why did the people that Paul, Peter, James, and John wrote to in the New Testament appear *not* to get those things? Why did Paul work hard at getting a collection ready from among the little church groups he talked with to take to the poor, destitute believers in Jerusalem?
Why did James, Paul, and the others say things like "consider it joy when you go through trials" or similar things? It seems obvious that they were NOT confirming that God was going always going to "provide" what we ask for, even if WE think we need it.
And yet, that idea persists. I regularly see people express disappointment with God even though God didn't ever promise the things that they're disappointed they didn't get.
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If you've been around believers for long enough, you've heard the basic teaching that God's answer to prayer usually falls into three categories: yes, no, and/or wait a while.
"Yes", sometimes God just answers with a big 'ole fat, "Yes, here's what you're asking for."
"No" and/or "wait a while" - the vast majority of people and personal experiences I've seen have this as the response they receive from God.
The "wait a while" is usually a catch-all answer that means that, given enough time, you'll see that what you're asking for wasn't a good thing or that you needed to wait a while until you were ready for it.
Our response to the answer we get from God when we ask for something usually tells us more about ourselves than anything else.
Usually it tells us that we're more interested in what we want than we are in God.
I think it's why Paul wrote what he did in Philippians 4 where he says:
It took me a loooooong time to actually read what Paul said and not "hear it" through what people said Paul was saying.
Most of the time, people told me to hear Paul as saying that if you need or want something, just pray about it a lot - like all the time - just keep asking God and he will give you patience to wait until...and usually they never explained what was going to happen.
If you pressed people on it, they'd eventually do the "yes, no, or wait a while" speech for you - but the distinct impression was always left that you ought to keep on asking because he might give you want you're wanting.
What Paul actually says is to relax because God is near and that's the most important thing - God is near. And if you're anxious about anything, tell God about it. Keep thinking about good things and doing the good things you've learned to do. And THEN...the peace of God will be with you.
Paul doesn't say, and then God will give you what you're wanting or asking for.
He says that God will give you peace.
Paul even goes on after that and shares that he had to learn contentment - that sometimes the things he would like to have had didn't show up. He learned that with God with him, he could go on - in feast times or famine - God was the one who gave him strength, not the having of things he would like to have had.
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I know that this isn't necessarily a huge surprise to some people, but for a lot of people I've interacted with over the years, it was something that people struggled with a lot.
I have days where I have to walk through it all again myself because there are parts of me that still want God to be a vending machine or divine provider of tasty, fun things.
It's just not true. God never promised a lot of the things that a lot of believers hinted at or maybe even said he would do or provide.
Imagine the frustration if someone came to you regularly and asked you for something you never said you'd would provide for them. And they did it again and again, over and over.
And, at the same time, they never ask you for the things that you have ready to hand them at that very moment -- things that would change their life -- they just ignore them.
It's one of those things that, IF you get it, you begin to understand God and life differently in ways that open up your ideas of what is "good" and you can begin to see that God really has already given us all we need for life with him and each other.
I know that not everyone is ready to hear that, but some are. And hopefully it will open up some good conversations that will pay off in the end for them.
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I remember many years ago someone sharing that Mother Teresa, in one of her diaries or private conversations, before she died, shared her sorrow and frustration that God never "showed up" in a way that she would know, experientially, that he was there and present with her.
I get that. We would all like some magic touch to "confirm" what we're doing, believing, or hoping for.
If I remember correctly, Jesus said to Thomas, who was doubtful about Jesus after his resurrection, "You believe because you see me; blessed are those who have not seen me and yet believe".
For many, a life of trust and dependence on God is SO very different than what they have learned "in church" - it's a life of faith, not sight.
And, oddly enough, I pray regularly that God will help people see that.
Peace and goodwill to you and yours.
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