And yet, “be careful what you pray for, you might get it!” portrays a Heavenly Father who waits up in heaven for a Gotchya! moment. Every prayer request put before Him is a “teachable moment,” every prayer for strength an opportunity to test your mettle, every prayer for patience an opportunity to run His children through the grinder of difficulty and frustration in the name of “growing” patience in His followers.

These do not seem like the actions of a heavenly Father to me, but those of a Heavenly Drill Sergeant. Who would dare ask a drill sergeant for a favor, lest he require fifty extra push-ups? //

Scripture instead describes a God who wants us to pray without fear. For everything and anything. To pray even when the prayers are ridiculous. Thomas wouldn’t believe eyewitness accounts of men he’d spent the previous three years with, men he surely trusted, and yet, Jesus granted Thomas’s desire, //

Do note that Jesus did not make Peter swim himself to shore in order to teach him perseverance or to teach him that walking on the water isn’t so important, really, and he should desire more holy and less ridiculous things. He just rescued him. Immediately. //

The Bible also abounds with accounts of those whom God made comfortable, with more than they needed. There was food left over after Jesus fed the multitude. (Mark 6:30-43) The widow who fed Elijah had food for many days after she fed the prophet. (1 Kings 17:7-16) Jesus made Thomas emotionally comfortable, (if you’ll forgive the modern idiom) even in his doubt. When Jesus called the disciples, he didn’t just give them enough fish, he gave them so many their nets started to break. (Luke 5:1-11) And when the wine ran out at the wedding at Cana? Jesus didn’t just turn the water into wine, he turned it into good wine. (John 2:10). Even Job, who is surely our best example of suffering and want save Christ himself, was restored two-fold at the end of his trial. (Job 42:7-16) //

If anything, this car is teaching me to hope again, to receive God’s good material gifts without fear that they will be snatched away in order to teach me a lesson. To ask my dear Father in Heaven just as I asked my dear earthly father when I was small. To understand that God sometimes grants abundance, and when he does, it’s because He is good, not because I am.