Dear God, Thank you for the baby brother, but what I prayed for was a puppy. --Children's Letters to God
Sometimes we look around, assess the situation, and decide what we think we need. So we go to God and begin praying.
Out of the blue, our prayers get answered. But the answer isn't what we requested. We were so specific, we think. Now, this this thing has come along. We didn't get what we asked for. Our prayers were answered, but we got something else.
Don't get bitter or so involved with feeling blue about not getting what you requested that you miss out on what you did receive. Wants and needs are closely connected. And all our needs, even the ones we're not completely aware of yet, will be met. Be grateful that God knows more about what we need than we do.
Sometimes when we pray, we get what we want. Sometimes we get what we need. Accept both answers the yes's and the something else's with heartfelt gratitude. Then look around and see what your lesson and gift is.
God, help me remember to be thankful even when the gift is not quite what I expected.
I stopped praying -for- things a long time ago, I prayed for humility then I got bludgeoned into it, I prayed for patience and get stuck in traffic, I pray for love and tolerance and get assholes in my life, so now I just say "Thank you" for everything I am given, I don't need to pray for knowledge of "God's will" for me because if it is there, it is God's will
I grew up reading Conan and Tarzan, a few years ago I picked up an old Conan book and saw these quotes:
What use to call on him? Little he cares if men live or die. Better to be silent than to call his attention to you; he will send you dooms, not fortune! He is grim and loveless, but at birth he breathes power to strive and slay into a man's soul. What else shall men ask of the gods? ... There is no hope here or hereafter in the cult of my people. In this world men struggle and suffer vainly, finding pleasure only in the bright madness of battle
"I have known many gods. He who denies them is as blind as he who trusts them too deeply. I seek not beyond death. It may be the blackness averred by the Nemedian skeptics, or Crom's realm of ice and cloud, or the snowy plains and vaulted halls of the Nordheimer's Valhalla. I know not, nor do I care. Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content."
and I had to start laughing, you know we all have this "childhood idea" of God? Like recovering Catholics have this "punishing God" etc, I realized this is where I learned my "model" for "God", and the most important thing was to not call attention to myself with Pride or vainglory,which I did with astonishing regularity while drinking with predictable results, as sure as the sun rises, my God's "lessons" in this have been swift and merciless...I guess that's why one of the biggest gifts I got from sobriety has been to be "average"...just a garden variety drunk of the average variety...I notice when I am this humble drunk, no better then everyone around me, I sure don't get "smote" as often
Now my "model for God" is much closer to Chuck C's, I don't pray for things, I don't pray to be kept sober, these things are not my job, these things are God's job, if I have a new employer I try not to second guess him ya know...his job is to keep me sober and provide for me, and my job is to report for duty, do what's in front of me, and say thanks at the end of the day
I still however, do everything in my power to remain "under the radar" though, when I get too big for my britches I still get "smote" pretty fast
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it's not the change that's painful, it's the resistance to change that is painful
