Thursday, March 08, 2012

Modest Prayers

I have a tendency to believe that my prayer is more deserving, and God more likely to answer it, if it is more modest in scope.  I doubt that is good theology.  One has to stretch to find Biblical support, as God seems if anything asks us to be rather expansive and reckless in our asking.

It's not insane, of course.  It does have the effect of our attending to the exercise of seeing what our daily bread is, not our daily bakery.  Likely, it also strengthens our idea of God as parent, as that is exactly the strategy children (eventually) learn works best with Earth Dad.  Yet Dad never suggested he was giving crowns and precious gems in quantity in any event, so that analogy was never exact.

2 comments:

james said...

Maybe we worry that James 4:3 applies, and that worry undercuts our whole-heartedness. Maybe we over-analyze; there's Rev 3:15 too.

Texan99 said...

I hadn't run across the bread-vs.-bakery idea before, but it's wonderful.