You Are So Good To Me?

This past Sunday all was going pretty well for me. My hair and outfit for the day were in good order, I had chatted successfully with some friends, had my coffee and was now comfortably ready to sit through another 40 minute message. All was good in the world. It was at this point that the speaker put Phil. 4:6 on the screen. "Don't be anxious for anything but in prayer and supplication with thanksgiving make your requests known to God." Normally, I just keep listening. But this time I immediately thought, "Why? What good will it do?" That thought stopped me cold. "Where did that come from?" I thought to myself.

"What good will it do?" Had I really lost hope that my requests matter to God? Have I really begun to doubt His goodness to me? Do I really doubt that He cares? To be honest, some days, yes, I do doubt his goodness to me and I do occasionally feel like He doesn't care. How many times can you make the same requests known to Him, not see an answer, and still believe He cares? I don't know. How does prayer work anyway?

There are so many passages that say, "ask and you will receive" or "ask for anything in my name and it will be done for you" or "ask, believing that you have what you ask for, and you will have it" not to mention the old standby, "delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." Not to be boastful, but I feel like I've done this. So why don't I have the things I ask for? I just don't understand how this all works sometimes.

But I guess it still comes down to one thing. Do I trust Him? Do I trust Him with my life, to lead me in this journey? To trust Him, I have to believe in His goodness. And yes, I do believe in His goodness. He did save me after all. Intellectually I have no problem believing that He loves me and cares for me. And if I think real hard, I'm sure I could remember things in my life that serve as reminders that He is indeed good to me. My head knows His love for me and His caring of me to be a fact. My experience is what falters. My heart lags behind.

Maybe I'm just being a bratty kid who isn't getting what she wants. That's probably true. And maybe, just maybe, I've made this whole prayer thing a little too much about me. I still don't understand how it all works together, but with my mind, I'm choosing to believe in His goodness to me. I just wish my heart believed it too.