My four year old, Carson, looked up at me with his big blue eyes and said "Mommy, I have been praying to God" which as you can imagined blessed my heart immensely! I stopped for a brief moment in my mind as I pictured Jesus Himself patting me on the back with His angels in the background singing praises that my "parenting skills" were not in vain after all. However I quickly came back to reality as I heard Carson explain that he prayed for nothing less than a trampoline to enjoy in our backyard!
Well that sounded more like the prayer of a four year old, yet I seized the opportunity for a life lesson nonetheless. I reminded him that we should really pray for things we need...not things we want which seemed to me to be an age appropriate response. However his answer was a simple, straightforward one. "Mommy I DO need a trampoline, but God still hasn't answered my prayer!"
Why was I surprised at his innocent, but demanding request from God when many times we are guilty of the same?  We think we need that bigger house, that better job, or a husband who actually takes out the trash every day.  We are tempted to look at what we do not have instead of taking the time to count our blessings right in front of us.  Doesn't God's word remind us in Matthew 6:8 that He knows what we need...

"...the Father knows the things we have need of even before we ask him." (NKJV)

 

The greatest plans I could create for myself here on this earth would NOT compare to what God has in store for us in His perfect plan, and He is fully capable of ensuring that His will is done in spite of our restless hearts who want to see our own agenda accomplished often instead. 


Matthew 6:25-30
“Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?   Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?  Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?
 “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin;  and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.  Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?


"Lord help me today and every day to be confident in your plan for my life knowing that worry and anxiousness will not change my circumstances.  Let me be like the birds you created who do not worry about what they will eat from one day to the next.  May I be reminded that you clothed even the lilies that stand in splendor with their garments of royalty knowing they will be gone tomorrow.  Yet I, created in your image, will be clothed so much more and I am certain that you will care for me."