Prayer: What Does Not Work ~ Expectations

Greetings Dear Reader,

Too often I experience disappointment because I have carried unjust expectations.  As I explain to others readily, we cannot disappoint God because he already knows what we will do in every situation.  One cannot have expectations to disappoint if one already knows what will happen.  It would be like watching an instant replay and hoping for a different result.

We, however, generate expectations like an engine designed for it.  We place them on each other and even on God.  We pray having already decided for God how he will respond.  We ask for our own purposes wanting to get God to sanction our will.  This does not work.

First, we need to realize that God already has it worked out.  He knows what we need and has prepared to meet us where we are.  Second, we are supposed to be about his business not trying to manipulate him to do ours.  There is nothing wrong with wanting, dreaming, planning, and working.  Our vision must be supported in prayer.

What we must not do is forget that we are part of something much larger.  We are not the designers we are the designed.  We are his work for his plan and purpose.  I must not place expectations any more than the characters in my stories may place expectations on me.

When I pray I must ask with confidence for the what I believe is right.  I must not cross the line into expecting the Father to do my will.  I must never think that my will, even though it is free, can supersede what God has purposed.  He is too far ahead of me for that. 

The Answer – Rudyard Kipling

A Rose, in tatters on the garden path,
Cried out to God and murmured 'gainst His Wrath,
Because a sudden wind at twilight's hush
Had snapped her stem alone of all the bush.
And God, Who hears both sun-dried dust and sun,
Had pity, whispering to that luckless one,
"Sister, in that thou sayest We did not well --
What voices heardst thou when thy petals fell?"
And the Rose answered, "In that evil hour
A voice said, `Father, wherefore falls the flower?
For lo, the very gossamers are still.'
And a voice answered, `Son, by Allah's will!'"

Then softly as a rain-mist on the sward,
Came to the Rose the Answer of the Lord:
"Sister, before We smote the Dark in twain,
Ere yet the stars saw one another plain,
Time, Tide, and Space, We bound unto the task
That thou shouldst fall, and such an one should ask."
Whereat the withered flower, all content,
Died as they die whose days are innocent;
While he who questioned why the flower fell
Caught hold of God and saved his soul from Hell.

Wishing you joy in the journey,

Aramis Thorn
Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a home owner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure store.”
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