Our Lord asks, “which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone?”. If I ask, out of the deep longing of my heart, as Our Lord commands us to do, and the answer is No, it is very hard not to think that I have been given a stone.
CS Lewis writes in “The Weight of Glory,”
“”¦ if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
The problem is not that God has said No to the deepest longings of my heart.
The problem is that I have not longed deeply enough.
Our Lord says “If you, then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”
I can’t imagine what those good things are, that surpass what I want.
But the poverty of my imagination does not limit the graciousness of my heavenly Father.
All the happiest memories…all that calls nostalgically to me…all the losses I mourn…all the sweetness that seems forever gone…all of it is a mere shadow of the joy that is waiting for me, for all of us. The things we remember were just glimpses of heaven…peeks into what is waiting…and not the real thing, as wonderful as they were. Those that I loved and are now “gone” are waiting for me. The lazy sound of cicadas, the scent of magnolias, the sweetness of tea and conversations surrounded by so much love you could almost drown…at a place that is now overgrown Florida jungle, with years of time passed by…it is all waiting for me and more, much more. Thank you Lord Jesus…thank you for all that you have done…for the joy that awaits.
[blockquote]13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
Luke 11:13 (NIV)[/blockquote]
The corresponding passage in Luke is much more explicit. The thing that Ordway cannot imagine is the Holy Spirit. The pearl of great price that is worth more than anything else we possess is having God live inside of us and to hear his voice. This is the point of the great commandment. God’s life with us is a gift but we also need to be commanded because we so easily give in to the temptation to self medicate.
The longer you live and the more you reflect on your experiences in the larger picture, you realize that God said “no” for very good reasons. At least, that’s mostly been my experience. We’re just an impatient and impetuous people.
And with age and reflection also come lessons in HOW and for what to pray.
Holly Ordway has also written a book, Not God’s Type: A Rational Academic Finds a Radical Faith, about her path from atheism to Christianity. And, of course, being an academic, she ended up as an Episcopalian (and I mean that in a good way – C.S. Lewis, etc.) in an Anglo-Catholic parish (unfortunately, in a “progressive” diocese).