I remember taking the kids to the store back when they were young. I’m pretty sure that by the time we left, one of them had asked for everything the store sold, and probably a few things it didn’t.
At some point, I would say something like, “Look, please don’t ask for anything else today. You’ve got everything you could possibly need, and you don’t need everything you see.”
If you’re a parent, you’ve probably had similar experiences.
I wonder if God ever gets tired of our requests?
I doubt it. Or at least I doubt if he’s ever disappointed with our asking for too much.
Instead, I think he probably wonders why we ask for so little, and maybe why we don’t ask for some bigger things.
C.S. Lewis put it like this:
“Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.”
Mud pies in a slum?
Are we making mud pies when we could be at the beach?
Maybe sometimes we do. We ask for the trivial when God wants to give us the sublime.
We ask for temporal things when we ought to think about the eternal.
We ask for physical healing when our spirit needs it more.
This week think about your requests, and consider if they are consistent with how big your God is.
Paul wrote: “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, “to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen” (Ephesians 3:20-21).
I don’t think God gets frustrated with “mud pie” requests, but I’m sure he would rather take us to the ocean. —Chuck
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