Today’s Verse—Philippians 4:6
Tell God about everything. Ask and pray. Give thanks to him.
A girl with a hat shaped like a halo stepped behind the counter. “Welcome to God’s throne. May I take your order?”
“Let me look at your menu,” a boy said, studying the board. “All right, I’ll take an A on my math test.”
“Okay . . .”
“And I’d like to win my basketball game tomorrow,” he added.
“Would you like to supersize that?” she asked.
“What does that mean?”
“You could be the star of the game. Score twenty points,” she said.
“Ooh, yeah. Let’s do that. And give me a side of courage to sit next to Lisa at lunch.”
“A side of courage . . . And what do you want to drink?” she asked.
“I’ll take a thirty-two-ounce cup of harsh justice for my enemies.”
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We sometimes treat prayer like this, don’t we? As if God is standing behind a counter waiting for us to tell Him what we want. And then we want Him to give it to us for free.
In the Odyssey episode “And When You Pray . . .” (album 4), Jimmy prayed for a bike and got it. So Donna decided to pray that it would rain the next day so she could get out of gym. But all she got was laughed at, because she showed up to class in a raincoat on a sunny day. Later, at Whit’s End, Whit showed the kids his new invention—a vending machine for prayers. If they pressed the buttons, they could get whatever they wanted. But the machine didn’t work, because that’s not the way God works. God wants to hear our requests, but we need to know that we won’t always get what we want. Just like a good parent, He doesn’t give us everything we want.
Wandering with Wooton
I hate asking for stuff. Once when my car broke down, instead of asking to borrow my neighbor’s car, I biked all the way to the store. It was fine on the way there, but I really should have thought about the ride home before I bought the fifteen-gallon can of olives. With God, it’s easier to ask Him for things. I know He’s listening and wants to hear what’s on my heart.
Asking God for things for ourselves is called a petition. In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus demonstrated how to ask for what we need (“Give us today our daily bread”), for guidance and protection (“Keep us from falling into sin when we are tempted”), and for rescue or deliverance from evil (“Save us from the evil one”) (Matthew 6:11, 13). When we petition God, we admit to Him that we can’t handle problems on our own, and we want to hand them to Him. He will help us because He loves us and wants the best for us.
Daily Challenge
When you pray this week, try hard to make petitioning God the last thing you pray about. Make sure you honor God with praise and thanksgiving first, then confess your sins, then ask God for His blessings on others, and finally pray for yourself. This doesn’t always have to be the order, but sometimes it helps you make sure you don’t spend your entire prayer treating God as if He were a vending machine.
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Prayer Theme Memory Verse—1 Thessalonians 5:17
Never stop praying.