And we are confident that he hears us whenever we ask for anything that pleases him. And since we know he hears us when we make our requests, we also know that he will give us what we ask for. [1 John 5:14-15 (NLT)]
May he grant your heart’s desires and make all your plans succeed. [Psalm 20:4 (NLT)]
What do you hope to find tucked into your Christmas stocking or deposited under the tree Christmas morning? From the above words, it’s easy to think God is promising something like Christmas morning every day. Although He promises to hear and answer our prayers, let’s remember that He’s not so specific as to how He’ll answer them.
Remember the story of King Midas? As a reward for the King’s kindness, Dionysus offered Midas anything he wanted. Coveting wealth, Midas wanted everything he touched to be changed into gold. Although he was warned to think seriously about such a wish, the king insisted. How thrilled he was when the twigs and stones he handled became precious metal. Midas’ joy at his gift began to fade, however, when he discovered that gold roses have no aroma and food became metal before it could be eaten. After a simple touch turned his daughter into a golden statue, the king detested the gift he’d so desired. Taking pity on him, Dionysus told the king to wash in the river Pactolus to lose his golden touch and make things right again.
While the Midas story has pagan beginnings, there is much a Christian can learn from this ancient myth, the first of which is not to love material possessions. When we pray, we shouldn’t act like children looking through Amazon’s “Ready, Set, Play” holiday toy catalog or grown-ups browsing through the Neiman Marcus 200-page Christmas Book and marking the pages with our holiday fantasies. Prayer is not like writing a wish list to Santa for all the gifts we desire and God’s promises are never an excuse for greed or selfishness.
Unlike a mythical Greek deity, God will not give us anything that could harm us. While we’re not likely to ask for a snake or scorpion, we have been known to ask for other things that could bring us harm—the extra money, new job, sexy guy at work, vacation in Vegas, or that big house with an even bigger mortgage. Just like King Midas, our limited (and selfish) perspective cannot possibly see all of the ramifications of our prayer requests. We ask for things without understanding how they may affect our life or the lives of others. We may know what we want but God, in his infinite wisdom, knows what will happen if we get it. If God had given me everything for which I prayed, it would have taken way more than a bath in the river Pactolus to clean up the resulting mess and set things right again. It’s been said that God’s answers are far wiser than our prayers and, indeed, they are. With love and wisdom, in His own time and way, God will always answer our prayers. Let’s give thanks that “Yes” is not always His answer to our requests.
The devil doesn’t come in a red cape and pointy horns. He comes as everything you’ve ever wished for. [Anonymous]
Although it sounds like something Satan might say to his demons, it was Alex Dumas, CEO of Hermès, who said “Our business is about creating desire.” It’s not just Hermès (with their $8,500 Della Cavalleria “magical bag”) that is in the business of creating desire; that seems to be the goal of many businesses. The LA Times has a “Coveted” column in their Image magazine featuring a curated list of luxury items (like $950 Gucci sneakers) they claim to be “mandatory” or “must-haves.” The October Vogue featured “coveted street style trends,” (like $1,364 velvet trousers and $600 Levi jeans) while urging its readers to purchase them “before it’s too late.” There’s even an on-line game called “Covet Fashion” in which you build your virtual dream wardrobe and then follow links to purchase the desired items.
Apparently speechless when Jesus washed their feet, John records no one objecting to His doing so until Jesus came to Peter. After protesting that Jesus never would never wash his feet, the Lord warned the disciple that unless he allowed Jesus to wash him, Peter wouldn’t belong to Him. Eager to show his devotion to Jesus, Peter then enthusiastically offered the rest of his body for cleansing. Jesus explained that, because Peter already bathed, only his feet needed washing, while adding that not all of those present were clean. Since we know the rest of the story, we know He was referring to Judas. The reference to Judas not being clean, however, tells us that this exchange is about more than washing the filth of Judah’s roads off the disciple’s feet. Since Jesus wasn’t giving a hygiene lesson, what did He mean?
Friends recently watched their young grandson while his parents enjoyed a much needed “adults only” vacation. Accustomed to the permissive parenting of today, the youngster wasn’t overly familiar with obedience. One of the first things he learned during his visit was that, “Grandpa doesn’t count.” Apparently, his parents give him a count of three (or more) to decide whether or not to obey them; Grandpa, however, did not!
Every breakfast, lunch and dinner, a recent house guest consumed between five and fifteen supplements like flaxseed and fish oils, magnesium, vitamin D, calcium, turmeric, ginger, cinnamon, and resveratrol (among others). Annually, people like our guest spend around $35 billion on supplements, vitamins, minerals, botanicals, and other substances to enhance their health. It doesn’t stop there; every year, five million diet books are published, at least 17 million cookbooks are purchased, and $33 billion is spent on weight loss products. Add to that all of the magazines, food channels, websites, blogs, and podcasts dedicated to nutrition, recipes, and weight loss and you have a nation of people who seem obsessed with what goes into their bodies.
When writing about mimicry yesterday, I thought of Esther and her cousin Mordecai. The book of Esther takes place between 483 and 473 BC but the story began about 120 years earlier when Mordecai’s great-grandfather was in the second group of Jews deported from Jerusalem to Babylon. Rather than treating these deportees as captives or slaves, they were more like immigrants. Although they were given new Babylonian names, the were allowed to keep their God as long as they also worshipped the Babylonian ones. After Babylon fell to Persia in 539 BC, the first Jewish exiles returned to Jerusalem the following year. Perhaps because they’d become comfortable in their new homeland or feared the challenge of rebuilding Jerusalem, like many others, Mordecai and Esther’s family did not return.
