The Cost for What's Truly Good
Practically, I pray for safety, health and good grades. Spiritually, I pray to be filled with love, joy, hope, patience, faith...and then I realize that when I ask for more faith, he creates for me a greater need for faith; when I pray for hope, he reminds me that "suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope” (Romans 5:3-4)...In a sense, I was also praying for challenges, hardships, and struggles.
We often don't know what we're asking for when we pray the prayers we do. The invitation to a life of risks and dangers rather than comfort, the welcoming of necessary sadness and pain in exchange for greater faith and joy. It's easy to pray for on a good day, but what about continuing to ask the same when we're in the middle of it all?
What happens when he actually gives us what we ask? What happens when we're in the valley and are unable to grasp the big picture? When we're incapable of seeing the good that will come out of the bad. Do we really want both the ups and the downs?
The club that I'm in decided to do a rose sale fundraiser for Valentine's Day. My task was simple: call the florist, order the roses, and pay for it. Straightforward as the job was, I was capable of messing it up by e-transferring the money to a wrong email address. Just like that, my money was gone, all 108.50 dollars.
The truth has somewhat sunk in by now. In all honesty, it's not even that big a deal. But at the moment all I felt was regret and frustration, all I wanted was my money back, and it was difficult to see beyond the temporary surge of emotions. It was in that instant I became utterly conscious of the conflict between my desire for change and my lack of "pain tolerance".
In life, the ups will feel amazing, and the downs are going to suck, they're gonna feel awful, terrible, even make you want to take back that daring request for challenges. But I hang on to the knowledge and trust that the product of any such suffering produces what is truly good.
When we're blinded by what's present before our eyes and fail to see the all encompassing-goodness in his overarching plan, what he asks of us is nothing more than to trust him. For "all things work for the good of those who love him"(Romans 8:28), all things.
P.S. Funny enough, I ended up getting the money back because the person who I mistakenly sent it to did not accept it (thankfully). Nonetheless, the lesson learned stays the same.
We often don't know what we're asking for when we pray the prayers we do. The invitation to a life of risks and dangers rather than comfort, the welcoming of necessary sadness and pain in exchange for greater faith and joy. It's easy to pray for on a good day, but what about continuing to ask the same when we're in the middle of it all?
What happens when he actually gives us what we ask? What happens when we're in the valley and are unable to grasp the big picture? When we're incapable of seeing the good that will come out of the bad. Do we really want both the ups and the downs?
The club that I'm in decided to do a rose sale fundraiser for Valentine's Day. My task was simple: call the florist, order the roses, and pay for it. Straightforward as the job was, I was capable of messing it up by e-transferring the money to a wrong email address. Just like that, my money was gone, all 108.50 dollars.
The truth has somewhat sunk in by now. In all honesty, it's not even that big a deal. But at the moment all I felt was regret and frustration, all I wanted was my money back, and it was difficult to see beyond the temporary surge of emotions. It was in that instant I became utterly conscious of the conflict between my desire for change and my lack of "pain tolerance".
In life, the ups will feel amazing, and the downs are going to suck, they're gonna feel awful, terrible, even make you want to take back that daring request for challenges. But I hang on to the knowledge and trust that the product of any such suffering produces what is truly good.
When we're blinded by what's present before our eyes and fail to see the all encompassing-goodness in his overarching plan, what he asks of us is nothing more than to trust him. For "all things work for the good of those who love him"(Romans 8:28), all things.
P.S. Funny enough, I ended up getting the money back because the person who I mistakenly sent it to did not accept it (thankfully). Nonetheless, the lesson learned stays the same.
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