| Secrets of a Beautiful Life |
Chapter 14 |
Page 5 |
A child may indolently shrink from the study, the regular hours, the routine, the drudgery, and the discipline of the school, begging the parent to let him stay home from school and have an easy time; but what would you think of the father who should weakly and softly grant the child’s request, releasing him from the tasks which irk him so? Nothing more unkind could be done. The result would be the dwarfing of the child’s life for all the future. Is god less wisely kind than our human fathers? He will not answer prayers which ask that we may be freed from the duty or from work, since it is by these very things we grow. The only true answer in such prayers is the non-granting of what we ask.
Then there are also selfish prayers that are unanswered. Human lives are tied up together. It is not enough that any one of us shall think only of himself and his own things. Thoughts of others must modify all our life. It is possible to overlook this in our prayers, and to press our own interests and desires to the harming of others. God’s eye takes in all His children, and He plans for the truest and best good of each one of them. Our selfish prayers which would work to the injury of others He will not answer. This limitation applies especially to prayers for earthly things. We must not pray selfishly even for our own comfort and ease without qualification. Love must come into our praying as well as our living. Or if we forget love’s law, and think only of ourselves in our asking, God will not grant us our desires. He thinks of all His children, and will not do injury or harm to one to gratify another.
These are examples of prayers that are not answered. They are not according to God’s will. They are for things that would not prove blessings to us if we were to receive them.
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