Magoo and me

Mr. Magoo was a cat with nine lives. He would merrily blunder through traffic jams and plow through creaky ladders and emerge unscathed through the catastrophes he caused.

Sometimes I have taken to doubting God's love for me when a specific prayer request was not answered my way. I have effectively made His answers to my prayers the litmus tests of His love.

It occurred to me as I was driving to Michigan this summer that God is busy all the time for me, firing off a thousand orders to his angels for every one puny prayer request I think to ask Him for: "Keep that car from swerving into her." "Send her a red light to avoid that accident three miles ahead." "Hold that rickety bridge up." The favor I found with that car rental agency and with the prison C.O. and with the stranger I asked for directions---these are all His busy graces toward me and His running interference for me, all while I grumbled at His inactivity because I didn't see the answer to one puny prayer request.

Why should I not assume, when I send up a blanket prayer like "protect my kids" that every single thing that happens after the words leave my lips and reach His ear is the unfolding of that granted petition? My son was beat up by four guys in a dark park recently. Maybe he would have been killed. (He's alright, just so you know.)

I think that from now on the way to pray is with the attitude---the unwavering confidence---that God has heard my prayer and has begun immediately (Daniel 10:12) to implement a plan for the best possible execution of the best spirit of that prayer.

"Many times he delivered them," says Psalm 106:43. And they and I probably never knew the half of it.

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