Spiritual Hiccups - One Wish

Everyone knows what happens if you find a lamp that contains a genie.  You get three wishes.  And I suspect that lots of people have speculated about what they would ask for if they were given those three wishes.  But what if it were simply one wish?  That thought came to me as I read this morning from Psalm 27. 

  One thing I asked of the LORD,  

          that will I seek after:  

     to live in the house of the LORD  

          all the days of my life,  

     to behold the beauty of the LORD,  

          and to inquire in his temple.

One thing, a single thing.  Me, I have a laundry list of things for God.  When Jesus teaches his disciples to prayer, that prayer has a number of petitions: for God's kingdom to arrive on earth, daily bread, and forgiveness.  And so I don't suppose I am restricted to one request.  But if I were, what would it be?

In Jesus' own prayer life, he asks for a number of things himself, but in the end, I think that all of them fit within a single one, that God's will be done.  That prayer encompasses all his others.  I like to think that the same could be said of my prayers, but I know better.  I'm not always willing to trust myself so fully to God. I'd much rather bend God to my way of thinking.  I'd like to convince God to want what I want.

Some of the most difficult times in my faith life come when I think I have done what I should do, what God calls me to do, and things don't turn out the way I had envisioned.  I see the same thing happen in congregations.  They implement some new program or activity because they genuinely feel led to do so.  They, quite naturally, assume that their faithfulness will result in a growth, a more vital congregation, a more vigorous ministry to the community.  But that does not always happen.  Then what?

We live in a world that is success and outcome oriented, and certainly there are times when a lack of congregational vitality or individual achievement is because of our failures to do as we should do.  But faithfulness does not always lead to what our culture tells us is success, which may be why Paul says to us today that "the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us."  Jesus faithfulness led to the cross, not a success by any earthly measure.

I have no plans to stop praying to God for particular things or outcomes.  My laundry list remains long and includes myself, my family, my congregation, the Church, the needy, the world, and so on.  But I am trying to discover how to be taught and shaped and even blessed by those frequent occasions when my prayers and my attempts at faithfulness do not lead where I had expected.  Who knows, I may learn far more about that "one thing" that I truly need, that is God's deepest desire for me, from "failures" and unexpected outcomes that I ever do when life goes as I want and expect.

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