17th Sunday in Ordinary Time--Unanswered Prayers
July 24, 2005 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time
In 1990, Garth Brooks recorded an album called "No Fences". One of the songs was called “Unanswered Prayers”. You may remember it. If not, the gist of the song was that he and his wife ran into his old girlfriend at a high school football game. He reminisces about how he used to pray that she would be his forever. But things didn’t turn out that way.
After seeing her again, he realizes that she didn’t turn out to be such a prize after all, and that some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.
Isn’t it like that with us sometimes? We ask God for what we think we want and then we don’t get it. Later on we find out that what we got was better than what we thought we wanted. In fact, Garth didn’t get it exactly right. There are no unanswered prayers. It’s just that sometimes the answer isn’t what we expect it to be. It’s better.
In the first reading today, the Lord visits Solomon in a dream. He says, “Ask something of me and I will give it to you.” God really painted himself into a corner with that one. If God told you He would give you anything you wanted, what would you ask for? That’s a hard question. Solomon asked for an understanding heart to be able to distinguish right from wrong.
God is so impressed that Solomon didn’t ask for riches, or a long life for himself, or for the lives of his enemies, that he made Solomon so wise that even today, when someone is really smart, we say he has the wisdom of Solomon.
Unfortunately, none of is as wise as Solomon, so sometimes we don’t pray for the right thing and our prayers appear to go unanswered.
In the Gospel, Jesus speaks of a pearl of great price. When the merchant finds it, he sells everything that he has to buy that pearl. That’s only true if the merchant knows enough about pearls to recognize one of great price when he sees it. Again, none of us is as wise as Solomon, so we might just miss that pearl.
A lot of you know that Jan and I have been planning a new house. We’ve been dreaming of building a log home on a lake for a long time. We’ve had the land for ten years and now that our youngest is in college, we decided that it was time to get serious. We had plans drawn up and found a builder. But, for some reason, things just haven’t been going well. We had trouble getting a building permit. The bank, who’s supposed to know all about log homes, suddenly seems to have forgotten everything they ever knew. Our insurance company has also gone into stupid mode and doesn’t want to give us insurance, even though log homes are the most fire resistant houses you can build. Things just haven’t been moving along like we planned.
So, what happened? We’ve been praying. We thought God had a plan for us. We thought that there was something in St. Charles or Warren county that God wanted us to do.
Like Garth Brooks, our epiphany came on a Friday evening. We weren’t at a football game, we were eating dinner, just the two of us. We were talking about the house and the latest problem. The subcontractor we had picked to dig the foundation had disappeared. He was just gone. His phone was out of service. He didn’t answer his pager. Nobody knew what had happened to him.
We realized that we had both been thinking the same thing for the last few days. God doesn’t have a plan for us in the country. God’s plan for us is right here. We knew all along that the hardest thing we would have to do was leave St. Bernadette. Three of our four kids were baptized here. All four of them had their first confessions, first communions, and confirmations here. They all graduated from our school. We’ve been married thirty-six years and we’ve been in this parish for thirty of them.
This is home. I was ordained to serve in this parish. We decided that we would call the whole thing off and stay where we belong.
I’ve told you before that I’m a big fan of Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk. I’ll be going on retreat to his former monastery in Kentucky again in September. I have a prayer of his on my desk at work. He says that we don’t know what God wants us to do, so we do our best to do what WE think will be pleasing to God. Our trying to please God is what really pleases Him. It’s us, making the effort to do what we think He wants, that really makes Him happy.
Think about your own kids or grand kids. When they show up on your birthday with raw eggs and burnt toast for breakfast and have made a total mess of the kitchen, is that what you want? Of course not. Does it make you happy? You bet! We’re happy because they tried to make us happy. I think that that’s the way it is with God.
Merton says, "I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire (to please God). And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it."
Unfortunately, I’ve been doing it the other way around. I’ve been doing what I wanted to do, justifying it by thinking that my plan was somehow part of God’s plan. I had the pearl of great price all along, but not being as wise as Solomon, I didn’t realize it.
So, how’d Jan and I get so smart all of a sudden? We had been praying for the wrong thing but God kept giving us the right answer. The right answer is to stay where we are. That doesn’t mean we might not move some day. We probably will. Our house is too big for just the two of us. But, for now, we’re not going anywhere. It was an expensive lesson, but it was a lesson worth learning.
As much as I would enjoy sitting on my deck drinking coffee (decaf of course) and watching the sun go down over Lake Sherwood, I enjoy being here more.
Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.
In 1990, Garth Brooks recorded an album called "No Fences". One of the songs was called “Unanswered Prayers”. You may remember it. If not, the gist of the song was that he and his wife ran into his old girlfriend at a high school football game. He reminisces about how he used to pray that she would be his forever. But things didn’t turn out that way.
After seeing her again, he realizes that she didn’t turn out to be such a prize after all, and that some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.
Isn’t it like that with us sometimes? We ask God for what we think we want and then we don’t get it. Later on we find out that what we got was better than what we thought we wanted. In fact, Garth didn’t get it exactly right. There are no unanswered prayers. It’s just that sometimes the answer isn’t what we expect it to be. It’s better.
In the first reading today, the Lord visits Solomon in a dream. He says, “Ask something of me and I will give it to you.” God really painted himself into a corner with that one. If God told you He would give you anything you wanted, what would you ask for? That’s a hard question. Solomon asked for an understanding heart to be able to distinguish right from wrong.
God is so impressed that Solomon didn’t ask for riches, or a long life for himself, or for the lives of his enemies, that he made Solomon so wise that even today, when someone is really smart, we say he has the wisdom of Solomon.
Unfortunately, none of is as wise as Solomon, so sometimes we don’t pray for the right thing and our prayers appear to go unanswered.
In the Gospel, Jesus speaks of a pearl of great price. When the merchant finds it, he sells everything that he has to buy that pearl. That’s only true if the merchant knows enough about pearls to recognize one of great price when he sees it. Again, none of us is as wise as Solomon, so we might just miss that pearl.
A lot of you know that Jan and I have been planning a new house. We’ve been dreaming of building a log home on a lake for a long time. We’ve had the land for ten years and now that our youngest is in college, we decided that it was time to get serious. We had plans drawn up and found a builder. But, for some reason, things just haven’t been going well. We had trouble getting a building permit. The bank, who’s supposed to know all about log homes, suddenly seems to have forgotten everything they ever knew. Our insurance company has also gone into stupid mode and doesn’t want to give us insurance, even though log homes are the most fire resistant houses you can build. Things just haven’t been moving along like we planned.
So, what happened? We’ve been praying. We thought God had a plan for us. We thought that there was something in St. Charles or Warren county that God wanted us to do.
Like Garth Brooks, our epiphany came on a Friday evening. We weren’t at a football game, we were eating dinner, just the two of us. We were talking about the house and the latest problem. The subcontractor we had picked to dig the foundation had disappeared. He was just gone. His phone was out of service. He didn’t answer his pager. Nobody knew what had happened to him.
We realized that we had both been thinking the same thing for the last few days. God doesn’t have a plan for us in the country. God’s plan for us is right here. We knew all along that the hardest thing we would have to do was leave St. Bernadette. Three of our four kids were baptized here. All four of them had their first confessions, first communions, and confirmations here. They all graduated from our school. We’ve been married thirty-six years and we’ve been in this parish for thirty of them.
This is home. I was ordained to serve in this parish. We decided that we would call the whole thing off and stay where we belong.
I’ve told you before that I’m a big fan of Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk. I’ll be going on retreat to his former monastery in Kentucky again in September. I have a prayer of his on my desk at work. He says that we don’t know what God wants us to do, so we do our best to do what WE think will be pleasing to God. Our trying to please God is what really pleases Him. It’s us, making the effort to do what we think He wants, that really makes Him happy.
Think about your own kids or grand kids. When they show up on your birthday with raw eggs and burnt toast for breakfast and have made a total mess of the kitchen, is that what you want? Of course not. Does it make you happy? You bet! We’re happy because they tried to make us happy. I think that that’s the way it is with God.
Merton says, "I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire (to please God). And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it."
Unfortunately, I’ve been doing it the other way around. I’ve been doing what I wanted to do, justifying it by thinking that my plan was somehow part of God’s plan. I had the pearl of great price all along, but not being as wise as Solomon, I didn’t realize it.
So, how’d Jan and I get so smart all of a sudden? We had been praying for the wrong thing but God kept giving us the right answer. The right answer is to stay where we are. That doesn’t mean we might not move some day. We probably will. Our house is too big for just the two of us. But, for now, we’re not going anywhere. It was an expensive lesson, but it was a lesson worth learning.
As much as I would enjoy sitting on my deck drinking coffee (decaf of course) and watching the sun go down over Lake Sherwood, I enjoy being here more.
Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.
posted by Mike at 8:57 PM
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