The following is a response to a Mother’s concern for her son and her prayers.
My son, aside from being a husband and father, is involved in three other endeavors: he holds down a nursing job, is studying for his master's degree and teaches at a local college. As you might imagine, he's sleep deprived and, because these pursuits require a great deal of driving and shuttling back and forth between jobs, I'm worried that my son could fall asleep at the wheel and have an accident. After praying very hard for God to protect my son, I began to reflect on all of this. Would God prefer to see my son bleeding and broken in the road, and is it only the prayers of a mother that prompt God to protect him? Does God have a taste for bad outcomes, and is it only our badgering that sways God - sometimes? - E. Dix hills. N.Y
A: Why do we pray? When we speak to children, we tell them there are four kinds of prayers, thanks, gimmie, oops and wow.
"Thanks" prayers express gratitude to God for some blessing already given.
"Gimmie" prayers ask God for a blessing sought.
"Oops" prayers ask God to forgive us for some sin.
"Wow" prayers express our awe at God s creation.
Asking about the spiritual logic of gimmie prayers, which are, in our experience, by far the most numerous. To ask God's protection for your son is fine. You're asking God to do something for someone else rather than yourself, and you're asking for something you clearly cannot do yourself.
The problem you're having is quite interesting and important. You're wondering whether the only reason God decides to keep your son safe is your gimmie prayers, and whether, in the absence of those prayers, God would allow some terrible fate to befall him.
Why would you think such cruel thoughts about God? Why would yon suppose that the God who created the world and all of us and who has loved us with a great and sustaining love would want to wait for some day you forgot to pray to zap your son?
God gives and God takes away. Our lives are bounded by those spiritual parentheses.
What happens in the middle is our business. God is not waiting to hurt your son and you're not swaying God with your prayers.
The purpose of all gimmie prayers is not to get stuff from God but to ask God's help in adjusting to our circumstances and to ask for courage and resolve to make those circumstances better.
If your son stuffs his life with too many obligations, no matter his good intentions, he's needlessly risking his life.
Asking god to protect your son from needless risks is foolish, however. Your prayers are your way to cope with your fears, but a direct encounter with your son makes more sense than wondering what God is up to.
Speak with your son and tell him to slow down, but don't suppose God lies in wait to do him in.
God lies in wait to lift him up and with him all of us into a world where one day time will not matter at all.
