| The Hidden Life |
Chapter 7 |
Page 4 |
So when we pray to God to save us from all care, to take the struggles out of our life, to make the paths mossy, to lift away all loads, he simply will not do it. It would be most unloving in him to do so. Prayers of this kind, therefore, go unanswered. We must carry the burden ourselves. God wants us to learn life’s lessons, and to do this we must be left to work out the problems for ourselves. There are rich blessings that can be gotten only in sorrow. It would be a short-sighted love, indeed, that would heed our cries and spare us from the sorrow because we cried for this, thus depriving us of the wonderful blessings which can be gotten only in the sorrow.
A child may indolently shrink from the study, the regular hours, the routine, the drudgery, and the discipline of the school, begging the parent to let him stay at home from school and have an easy time; but what would you think of the father who would weakly and softly grant the child’s request, releasing him from the tasks which irk him so? Nothing more unkind could be done. The result would be the dwarfing of the child’s life for all the future. Is God less wisely kind than our human fathers? He will not answer prayers which ask that we may be freed from duty or from work, since it is by these very things we grow. The only true answer in such prayers is the non-granting of what we ask.
Then, there are also selfish prayers that are unanswered. Human lives are ties up together. It is not enough that any one of us shall think only of himself and his own things. Thoughts of others must modify all our life. It is possible to overlook this in our prayers, and to press our own interest and desires to the harming of others. God’s eye takes in all his children, and he plans for the truest and best good of each one of them. Our selfish prayers, which would work to the injury of others he will not answer. This limitation applies especially to prayers for earthly things. We must not pray selfishly even for prosperity in business. We must not ask for our own comfort and ease, without qualification. Love must come into our praying as well as our living. Or if we forget love’s law, and think only of ourselves in asking, God will not grant us our desires. He thinks of all his children, and will not do injury or harm to one to gratify another. These are examples of prayers that are not answered. They are not according to God’s will. They are for things that would not prove blessings to us if we were to receive them.
Page 4