28.9.08

Can you say "please"?

"BUT I WANT IT!"
I looked at my little sister whose face was as red as a tomato.
"I want that toy!" she yelled.
My other sister, the youngest, held a baby doll in her hands.
"Jessie, you can’t get that toy by screaming," I told her.
"But I want it!" Jessie wailed.
"No. You can’t have it. Wait until she’s done playing with it."

Later that night, I sat in my bed. I always pray at night, so I can talk to God about my day. I found myself asking and asking for countless things. I stopped. While it was good to be praying, all I was doing was basically TELLING God to do it. "Dear God, please help me do well in school tomorrow, please help me do well with my riding lesson, please bless my family tomorrow, please…." I noticed that if I took out the word "please", I was just demanding that God do it. Hopefully demanding. Please really doesn’t mean anything unless you are sincere.

So, when you pray this week, focus on praising God instead of telling him what you want.

1 comment:

  1. Good point. Some people throw "make your will be done" in their prayer. It's just a way of saying that you value what God wants before your own opinion. In other words we're ok with what God decides but we do have a personal preferance over the matter.

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