Note: On Tuesdays and some Sundays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.
Back in the day, Santa was often a disappointment for me.
I asked for a dark-haired, ponytailed Barbie; I got an ash-
blonde bubble cut. I asked for an Easy-Bake oven; I got a no-name brand doll-size kitchen sink. But I never, ever stopped believing in him, not until the day my mother told me who Santa was.
Why was it easier to believe in Santa, even when he didn’t always deliver as we asked, than it is to believe and accept that the Lord isn’t always going to give us what we want? Whether we babble like pagans or like the children God loves so tenderly, our prayers can look like our childhood wish lists did, full of tangible, actionable items: Cure my mother’s stage-four cancer. Find a job for my chronically unemployed husband. Make my children more obedient. Stop the guilt tapes from playing in my head. Punish that drunken driver who killed my best friend.
And when our requests aren’t fulfilled exactly the way we want in the time period we want, too many of us stop praying. He’s not going to give us what we want, so what’s the point, we rationalize. We think we’re grieving and hurting Him, and perhaps we are. But we injure ourselves even further.
God isn’t Santa. We don’t always get what we think we want or deserve; we all know that. Some of us spend swathes of our lives without getting anything we desire, even very real things like food, water, clothing, friends, good health, earthly love. Faith is easy when we’re getting the things on our want lists. Initially, it’s hard to surrender those lists and pray for acceptance, obedience, and surrender to what He knows is best for us. But ultimately, aren’t those prayers for acceptance, obedience, and surrender what Christianity’s all about?
