Be Careful What You Pray For

It sounds simple. We've heard it said often enough, yet we still find ourselves getting exactly what we pray for, don't we? Here's a short anecdotal commentary that might shed light on things happening in your life and why they come about.

WYSISYG is a tech-jargon term for What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get. The text editor for Blogspot uses this method to put these words on the page. Microsoft Word, and Open Office Writer are just two others among many, many examples.

We are familiar with getting almost what we see at the drive-thru, or Wal-Mart, and usually in online shopping, and that makes it easy to forget that faith isn’t about what we see. As the Letter to the Hebrews puts it, faith is the evidence of things we DON’T see. It’s what we don’t see that leads us to pray for – and receive – things of which we don’t foresee the consequences or ramifications.

It seemed like a simple request. About 20 years ago, I had a wonderful family with my wife, Nancy, and our two sons. Nancy and I had talked about a third child, and I wanted a daughter. So, I prayed for a daughter. I was insistent and persistent. I even suggested that if Nancy delivered another boy, I’d ‘pack him up and ship him back’, whatever that meant. The point is that I asked God for a daughter and He gave me one.

She still is one of the most beautiful girls anywhere, and now that she's a mother herself, I’ve come to understand a couple of truths. One is to be a dad, you need boys, but to be a daddy, you need a daughter. ‘Nuff said on that. It’s the other truth that is most important, and more importantly, often goes unlearned. It’s found in Jesus’ dissertation in John 15. Jesus tells us that if we abide in Him and His words abide in us, we can ask whatever we want, and it will be done for us (interesting to note: KJV says ‘to’ us).

I asked for a daughter. God supplied that daughter, and more. We ‘adopted’ our niece, and therefore count her two daughters among our grandchildren. Our oldest son and his wife have two daughters, and our youngest son and his wife have one daughter. My daughter has a daughter of her own. A quick count shows that God answered my prayer for a daughter with 10 girls. Far more that I could ask or imagine at the time. Not only did I get a daughter, I now have a daughter in my niece, and two daughters-in-law who are perfect matches for my boys. Add to that figure SIX granddaughters!

Talk about ‘good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over’! I’m convinced that we sometimes ‘ask amiss’, and actually do receive; that is that we ask for things that we cannot know the extent, or choose not to know the extent when we ask. Does a father give his child a scorpion when he asks for an egg? Jesus question was rhetorical, but the point is the same. There's absolutely no complaint, just a lesson learned about the gifts of God. I now have six beautiful, intensely intelligent, sometimes scheming, but most times adoring granddaughters due to one seemingly simple prayer. The idea translates easily into James’ exhortation, as well. How and why we ask is the primary point, and what we get isn’t readily what we see.

For readers that don't know us, I still have a wonderful family with Nancy these 29 short years later, and even though the kids have grown up and moved ahead in their lives, we have a great family! And our youngest son's wife is due to have a boy later this summer; Thanks, Jesus! We really appreciate that, too.

TJMac