A reader writes to ask if it is wrong to pray to God that his kid does well in his really important baseball game.
“Doesn’t God have better things to worry about than me asking for my boy to do well at the baseball game?”
What’s the answer?
It’s complicated.
One the one hand I want to say, “Geesh, you’re a grown up. Is that still your idea of prayer? That you ask God for little stuff like your kid’s ballgame? Grow up.”
On the other hand, unless we become like little children we cannot enter the kingdom, and the great saints say that it is perfectly natural and a good thing to ask God for seemingly little stuff because when we do we are like a little child going to Papa to ask him to help.
Furthermore, beneath the simple question is a more profound question: We’re supposed to pray to God the Father asking for “our daily bread”. Jesus himself taught us to pray in such a way.
But how does God answer prayer?
Atheists and mockers will ask, “Come now. Do you really believe that God is up there in heaven listening to billions of prayers every day and then figuring out how to answer them?
There’s an amusing scene in the film Bruce Almighty where the character (who has been given the power of God) tries to answer all the prayers that come in to him by email.
The idea that there is a big customer service switchboard in heaven taking all the calls isn’t exactly what we should envision. Continue Reading
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