When I am sick, I want to feel better. Finding the root cause and making changes in my lifestyle are too complicated. So, I seek treatment for the symptoms rather than the disease. I am more likely to go back to a physician who gives me medicine for temporary relief than to someone who keeps asking me to come back for further exploratory procedures.
When I pray, I ask God to prevent bad things from happening, to smooth out the path, to make everyone feel better, to take away hardships, pain, and discomfort. I am asking for the least invasive procedure, for symptomatic relief--not for lasting change. My prayers are for comfort rather than true healing.
When our requests for temporary comfort are not answered every time, we doubt the efficacy of prayer. Some of us extrapolate further and question the existence of an all-powerful, all-loving God.
Prayer connects us to God and to each other. It forces us to trust in a power higher than our own strength and wits. It changes and expands our perspective.
We all want an easy cure and too often we misread the long drawn out relief plan for a quick fix. Just like exercise. The body fat doesn't diminish and the endorphins for feeling great are not released and the muscles do not get stronger by wishing or praying for it. You have to do the work. God gives us the tools. How we choose to use them gives us the outcome we put the effort into.
ReplyDelete