Prayer

I've always liked writing and expressing my thoughts on issues. But I've also always told people that I'd never publish a book because I'm sure that years later I'd disagree with a good portion of it.

College definitely taught me that the more I learned, the less I actually knew. And I think this is true with our relationship with God in a certain way as well. The closer we grow with God, the more we realize our unworthiness. That's what God's been teaching me recently. That I need to change so much. I live with constant dissatisfaction, and it's hard to always pinpoint why. But I think a large part of it stems from sin in my life that God wants me to deal with.

And then I just heard a sermon that really made me think hard about who God is, and the nature of prayer. It was based around Christ's prayer sessions at Gethsemane. 3 times Jesus prayed to have "this cup" taken from him. Did Jesus repeat himself because he thought that maybe if he kept asking, God would change his mind? I don't think so. He did it because he needed to pray that many times, for that long to work it out with God. He just needed to talk to God that much about it, so that the Father would get him "through" the situation, not "around" it. And that's what the sermon was basically about. That prayer more often than not, a means by which God gets us through situations, not around them. God might not cure your cancer, but he can get you through it.

And then I thought about our expectations of God. Are people who really do pray, "Your will be done?" Or do we just tac that on for insurance. Is our ultimate desire to see God glorified and his will done on earth?

Then I got to thinking about my last film, "Got a Light." My big question that I was asking in that film is what do you do when things don't work out? What do you do when God doesn't answer your prayers. And this is the final answer to the film. It took me a year to realize it, but I think if I had to remake the film, I'd end it with the lead character saying, "Your will be done!"