Lift Up Your Hearts!

Books, sermons, and debates on the problem of unanswered petitionary prayer have been around for as long as people have been praying. To my simple mind, the answer boils down to this:

1. A cosmic-vending-machine god would be a horror, speeding the world to hell even faster than we're already racing.
2. Capricious gods are basically humans with superpowers—think ancient Greece and Rome—and can almost be dealt with: you try to keep them happy, you rejoice when they do what you ask, and you shrug your shoulders when they don't. You win some, you lose some.
3. An all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful god who describes himself as a father will act more like ideal human parents, who know that bringing up children requires sometimes saying yes, sometimes saying no, and sometimes weeping when your response causes horrific pain—like parents who put a tiny child through the torment of chemotherapy because the alternative is so much worse.

I leave out the option that prayers aren't answered because there's no one to hear. Those who pray—and "thinking good thoughts" is also a prayer—believe someone or something will hear their heartfelt cry. The only question is what, or who.

It really comes down to a choice between (2) and (3). Choosing (3) requires that we accept that even our best, most unselfish, and most desperate prayers will sometimes seem to be ignored. Thus, I've come more-or-less to terms with the problem of unanswered prayer. It's the problem of answered prayer that seems to me to be sorely neglected.

We blithely sing,

Have thine own way, Lord!
Have thine own way!
Thou art the potter,
I am the clay.
Mold me and make me
after thy will,
while I am waiting,
yielded and still.

But have we ever really considered the perspective of the clay? The process that results in a beautiful vase sees the clay being slapped, kneaded, pushed, prodded, spun on a dizzying wheel, cut and trimmed, and fired in a blistering-hot oven. Is this really what we're asking for?

Stupid me, I keep praying, regularly and earnestly, "Make me into the person you want me to be." Apparently my Potter is taking me seriously. This is where I feel like pleading to be an ordinary, sun-dried pot, shaped by gentle hands and soft nudges. Who wants to be a Ming vase anyway? But it's been a potter's wheel kind of year.

Be careful what you ask for. Your prayers just might be answered.