Responding Like a Brat

During my five years in the Cru music ministry, it was always a special treat to visit the home areas of someone in the ministry, and one time we happened to be playing for the Sunday morning service of the music ministry assistant director’s home church in Ohio.  And, it just happened that Fred and his family were in town that same weekend.  And, it also just happened to be his four-year-old daughter Ashley’s birthday that Sunday.

Admittedly, there might have been a slight “kiss-up” motive in doing this, but we decided to present Ashley with a birthday gift – a cute little kids’ china teapot with matching tea cups.  So right before the service, we told Fred we had a gift for Ashley.  Fred located her in the elementary kids’ play area where she was fully engaged in cooking a pretend meal – so engaged, in fact, that she didn’t want to stop, even after being asked repeatedly to do so.

“Ashley, can you come here?” Fred asked.

Nothing.

“Ashley, please stop playing and come see Daddy.”

Still nothing,

“Ashley, look at me.  Come here now.”

This time, she looked up and said, “I don’t want to.”

The scene escalated to the point of anger on Fred’s part, tears on Ashley’s, and embarrassment on ours to have to witness this scene.  She finally settled down to the point where we could present our gift to her, but the joy of the moment had clearly vanished for all of us.

Later that morning, out drummer Stuart connected the dots and wondered out loud how many times we react to God’s gifts the way Ashley did to ours.  Here we were, offering her a free gift of something we had picked out especially for her, something we thought she would particularly enjoy.  But she was so wrapped up in playing with borrowed toys that she wouldn’t stop long enough to receive a gift she would be able to keep forever if she liked.

In my last blogpost about praying expectantly to our loving God, I quoted Matthew 7:9-11.  That passage is equally relevant here:

“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?  If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”       

In Ashley’s case, she wasn’t even asking for anything.  We were the ones initiating the gift-giving.  God gives me good gifts every single day:  life, health, food, clothing, relationships, the chance to help others, etc.  And then there are the times he blesses me with extra-special little reminders of his presence, things he’s orchestrated to bless me in a special way, tailored just for me. 

But I have to be willing to lay down my “borrowed toys” long enough to accept the unique gifts he’s selected just for me.

Two Ways Not to Pray, and One Way to Pray

“So let’s ask God to use this time in their lives in a special way.”  Every Sunday, someone from the stage leads us in prayer as the elementary age kids gleefully thunder out of the sanctuary for their classes.

Having brought two children through the teen-age years, watched many of our friends’ experiences, and read the dismal statistics surrounding Christian young people, I sometimes wondered which of these smiling faces would get caught up in drugs, teen pregnancy or total rejection of the faith in college. 

During one of my cynical moments, the Holy Spirit suddenly spoke to me.  Certainly, the statistics are accurate, and many young people do end up in unfortunate places.  But our kids are not statistically and fatalistically condemned to that future.  God has acted in miraculous ways over the millennia to do incredible and totally unexpected things. 

I remember learning in a church history class about a problem some coal mining companies encountered during the Welsh revival of 1904-1905.  So many men came to faith in Christ that work production nearly stopped because the mules no longer understood the men’s commands without the profanity.  Also, some of the coal mines posted signs asking the workers to stop returning the tools they had stolen because they had run out of places to store them.

If God could so change the hearts of crusty, hardened coal miners, could he not preserve the purity and faith of these particular nine-year-olds?  Of course he could, and I should lovingly ask him to do so.

I think my cynicism was driven in part by what I consider presumptuous prayer.  I’m all for claiming God’s promises, but I think we sometimes drift into demanding that he answer them in precisely the way we want him to.  It’s almost like we treat prayer as a magic spell where, if I say just the right words, sweat just the right amount, and throw enough Bible verses at God, he is compelled to do exactly what I think he should when I think he should do it.  I become the magician, forcing God’s hand to accomplish my version of what the future should look like.  Even Jesus himself prayed, “Nevertheless, not my will . . . .”

If we shouldn’t pray statistically or “magically,” how should we pray?  The best answer I know of is in Matthew 7:9-11 (The Message):

If your child asks for bread, do you trick him with sawdust?  If he asks for fish, do you scare him with a live snake on his plate?  As bad as you are, you wouldn’t think of such a thing. . . . So don’t you think the God who conceived you in love will be even better?

So, we should pray expectantly to our loving, heavenly father, leaving both our cynicism and our demands behind and trusting that he will graciously hear and answer our prayers to maximize his glory and our greatest good.