The correction

"O Lord, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed a quieted my soul . . ." (Psalm 131:1-2).

I went for a walk on a recent morning and came back a different person. When I left the house I had a certain view of God, and it was accompanied with striving and anxiety, and by the time I returned, my soul was quieted. I have had too mechanistic a view of God. I have expected that if I prayed in a state of distress or confusion or fear, I should receive immediate relief and assurance, and that my prayers for requests that I consider to be glorifying to God should be answered forthwith.

I am feeling rather ashamed of that at the moment. That morning I saw myself with sober judgment, and it wasn't pretty: I have been a person "unstable and double-minded in my faith," and God told us that such a person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord (James 1:6-8). Just because I decide one fine morning to shape up and not be unstable and double-minded anymore doesn't mean God is beholden to snap to attention.

I remembered, on my walk, that Jesus one time went into someone's house and didn't want anyone to know, but they found out anyway (Mark 7:24). So even Jesus---who desired and perhaps prayed to have his whereabouts unknown---did not receive automatic answers, stable and single-minded and godly though he was.

And did he not beg and plead with the Father all night in agony on Gethsemane? Did he receive instant peace? No, but beads of blood.

There is just too much I don't know to be dogmatic about what God should and shouldn't do for me.

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