Monday Morning Meditation #56: May the Lord Grant All Your Requests (Not)

This week I have continued on with the psalms, reading Psalms 11-20. What a gift these wonderful prayers of David are! I have savored every one of them. Still, not one prompted me to put pen to paper until I came to Psalm 20. In this psalm, I think David's pleas to God for the king reflect what every person would like: for God to answer all of our prayers, every single one of them, giving us everything we would like to have.

For the king, David says, "May the Lord answer you when you are in distress...May He give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed...May the Lord grant all your requests." Earlier, in speaking about himself (Psalm 11), David bemoans, "Why, oh, Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?" This is what we all want, right? We want God to rush to our rescue any time that we are in trouble and solve our problem with the precise solution that we seek. Oh, and beyond that, we want him to give us everything we desire. That would make our lives perfect, wouldn't it? That, for sure, is what many, if not most, of my teenage catechism students think -- and when this does not happen, they begin to question the existence of God.

Reading: Psalm 20

Meditation: I have frequently run into people who complain that God is not listening because they have laid some request before God that God has not granted, that God is not therefore a personal God. Or, perhaps they do eventually get what they have requested but have had to wait a long time before getting it.

The former complaint is one with which it is difficult for me to empathize. Since I converted rarely late in life, I have had a history of self-reliance and not blaming God when things go wrong, for five decades because I did not know that God existed, and more recently, post-conversion, because I have few desires. There is almost nothing that I could not live without -- except, of course, for my friends and relatives, especially my kids. Further, over time, I have learned that my solutions are not always the best solutions. My personal experience with God has been one of continuous surprise. I was initially surprised by His presence when I unwittingly challenged Him to let me feel His presence. Then, when I analyzed my life to date in the writing of Blest Atheist, I realized that God had been present at many times when things were difficult; I remembered many deus ex machina moments and many times that good things came from bad experiences. Most important, in my life, anyway, is the ways in which God has answered prayer -- His solutions have been far more brilliant than anything I could possibly dream up, a case in point being the time that Doah ended up in court, with the only possible results seemingly dire. Clearly, God knows best, and I would not want to get all my desires. I prefer to get God's desires for me. His desires are considerably more appropriate, much better, and more exciting than what my desires are or might be.

As for the latter complaint, God not rushing in the minute we ask or following our time frame, I always think about my friend, Omar, a Syrian poet, who wrote an entire book of poetry about waiting, the value of waiting, and God's various purposes in asking us to wait. (I wrote a short piece on it, too: "Esperando.") I do know that things seem sweeter after having waited for them, and I imagine that everyone, like me, has encountered the experience in which we received something after a long wait only to find it less desirable than we thought: there was greater excitement in anticipation than in reception. In fact, I strongly believe that often the journey is more important than the destination, and I have come to appreciate and even enjoy the journey.

Contemplation: That is far as I can go with you this Monday morning. I must retire to private prayer, repenting for ever thinking that my desires might be more important than God's desires for me. I will thank God for what He has not given me and the prayers He has not answered when my requests have not been in accord with my own best interests. I will praise God for His ability to present solutions that are brilliantly appropriate, better, and more delighting than anything I could think to want. As for petitions, I think I shall simply ask for more patience in waiting; that, after all, is not simple at all. Then I will spend as much time as I can in contemplation, my favorite part of the day, letting God take over the direction in which my relationship with Him moves.

I will leave you to your prayer and contemplation. First, though, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:

Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I hope you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation posts. (During the week, he also posts great homilies and other thoughtful discussions. I enjoy reading those, too.)

For additional inspiration throughout the week, I would point out two sets of blogs: (1) the list of devotional blogs on my sidebar and (2) my blogroll, where I am following a number of inspirational priests and writers about spiritual matters. I learn so very much from all these people. I highly recommend them to you.

Monday Morning Meditation #12: An Impatient People

This week, ploughing through chapters of Exodus that contain the laws that God gave to His people, I recognized the initial corpus of regulations for British common law upon which US law rests. Informative enough to require reflection!

After wondering whether I was being set up to become an overnight lawyer, I reached the more interesting (to me) story of how the Israelites grew tired of waiting for Moses -- there were, after all, a lot of laws being handed down -- and coerced Aaron into making a golden calf for them to worship. Of course, God was angry. Moses was so angry that he broke the tablets containing the Ten Commandments.

Reading: Exodus 32: 1-6

Meditation: I cannot help but see immense parallel between the Israelites' attitude and the attitude that I see on a daily basis, and, admittedly, even have at times adopted myself. The Israelites were not the only impatient people!

So many times I have heard people say that God did not answer their prayer. My catechism kids, for example, in their moments of greater skepticism will say that God does not care about them or will even question whether God exists because they did not get the answer to prayer that they wanted in precisely the manner they wanted at precisely the time that they wanted. Beyond understanding that "no" is a legitimate answer, they often need to be led to consider the possibilities that (1) God's answer will be better for them in the long run, (2) sometimes we want and ask for things that we should not have, and (3) that seemingly unanswered prayers may simply be prayers that have not been answered yet. I cannot recall not having a prayer answered, but I can recall longer waits than I would have liked and often getting answers I had not anticipated -- better answers, more creative answers, la chose juste that is beyond my capacity to conceive even though I am an inveterate out-of-the-box thinker. (My daughter, Lizzie, insists that I have not yet found the box.)

Deep down we know that patience is a virtue. Don't many of us pray for patience? But, as the joke goes, don't we often tell God that we want more patience, and we want it right now? Yes, we are an impatient people.

Sufis consider waiting to be a virtue that God requires of them. I have a Sufi friend, a poet, whose life has embodied this virtue and whose writing is filled with it. Deep down we, too, know the value of waiting. Don't we say that we often receive greater enjoyment in the anticipation than in the receiving of something? When we receive something for which we have long waited, don't we attach greater meaning to it? Ah, yes, we do that and know that, but nonetheless we are an impatient people.

And that is far as I can go with you on this Monday morning. I must retire to prayer to ask God for that proverbial patience, to express my regret for my daily moments of impatience, especially in those cases when I don't rein in or hide my impatience well in working with employees, to give thanks for God's great kindness in not becoming angry with me as with the Israelites (at least, I have never seen His anger, but then I have not yet made any golden calves -- fortunately, I don't have the gold, literal or allegorical, to do that), to offer praise for the ways in which He leads me to develop patience by the practice of waiting, and especially to tell Him that I know He spoils me far more often than I deserve (but I like it) by not making me wait very long at all.

After that, I will spend some time in contemplation, patiently abiding in His presence, which is the most joyful start to the day that I have ever experienced.

I will now leave you to your prayer and contemplation, but first, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:

Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I hope you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation.

Have a good day and a spirit-filled week, and may you find the patience you need in dealing with others and the trust to wait for responses to prayers not yet answered.

If you pick this up as a weekly devotional activity, please share with me and others your own thoughts about the message of Exodus 32: 1-6 or any other scripture that you choose for meditation. Feel free to copy the image of the mission church; maybe some time in the near future my Internet-inept self will be able to figure out how to use the Mr. Linky buttons, but to date I remain incompetent at the more sophisticated blog stuff. In the interim, you are welcome to use the image and share the meme of Monday Morning Meditation for starting out the work week closer to God.