Prayers

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My Strange Conversations with God
By Dan Blankenship



There is little doubt that God should find humor in some of my conversations with Him. Oh, I admit, most of my dialogue with the Good Lord, unless I am reading His Holy word, is considerably one-sided.

Most of my chats with God begin with me asking Him to throw a small blessing my way, like when I am driving to one of my daughter’s basketball games and I see a freight train about to ensure I will not be amongst the cheering viewers until the third period. “Oh please, God, let that train stop just before the crossing.”

As soon as the words left my mouth, I regretted forming them. How selfish it is of me to ask God to intervene in such a trivial matter. After all, how many parents were not able to attend their child’s game altogether? How many parents have children that didn’t make the basketball team? My prayer quickly changed into a prayer asking for forgiveness. Forgive me for calling upon your intervention for a basketball game. I should be happy just to have healthy children.

But it didn’t take long for me to fall right back into the same old routine. In fact, not even twenty minutes later I found myself whispering out a prayer for my daughter’s free throws to swish through the net. Umm...God, it’s quite all right if she misses these. Sorry to once again call upon your help without thinking about the more urgent prayers that must be coming to you right now.

Twice, in less than an hour, I had asked God to intercede on my account. I began to visualize those other prayers that might have been launched God’s way at the same time as my requests. I pictured a mother weeping over her daughter, a nine-year-old girl struggling with cancer and the chemotherapy used to fight the disease. What that woman wouldn’t give to see her daughter shoot a free throw that afternoon.

I saw a photograph in my mind of a man visiting his wife’s grave, completely alone in the pouring rain, a dozen roses clenched tightly in his hand. And for a split second, I felt his despair, his want to have even one more minute with the other half of his heart. What he wouldn’t give to go back in time and watch her playing forward on her college team the year before they exchanged their wedding vows.

I thought about a relative who died of emphysema, a terrible disease that slowly destroys your body, depriving it of the precious oxygen it needs. In his last days, I’m sure he was praying for more time to see his grandchildren grow up, to watch them play basketball, and to explain to them how precious life is.

I’ve spent a lot of my life asking God for things I can do without. And even though I’m sure He is okay with my humanness and the inherent faults that come along with the title, I believe He would like for my prayers to be more focused on my neighbors. Praying for them, and praying for others in general, is one of the most selfless acts we are capable of. It is so easy to concentrate our prayers on that which directly affects our lives, but it is Jesus-like to focus our God sent prayers on the needs of others.

Philippians 2:3-4 (NIV) “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should not look only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.”

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