NOT OK WITH OLD PRAYER

About ten years ago I offered up this prayer: “Dear Lord, please let me remain alive and healthy and gainfully employed at least until my kids get through college. By then, I will have completed my main duties as a father, and if I croak at that point in time, well, I’m OK with that.”

While driving home from Ohio last month, after attending the college graduation ceremony of my youngest child, that old prayer came to mind. I realized my prayer indeed had been answered, which means God is good! I also realized the part where I said, “I’m OK with that,” is an concept with which I am no longer all that OK.

So I offered up another prayer: “Dear Lord, you know the ‘I’m OK with croaking once my kids get through college’ thing I mentioned a decade ago? Well, I’m pretty sure you didn’t forget I said it, so I’m just wondering if it’s too late to, um, to modify that request. You see, there might be some things coming up that I hadn’t thought about. Some things where my kids might need me to be around. Things such as grad school, or weddings, or babysitting grandchildren, or if anyone needs to have the Infield Fly Rule explained. So if it’s OK with you, I respectfully wish to rescind my ‘I’m OK with that’ prayer, OK?”

I don’t think I’m the only person who bargains with God. (Although I might be the only one who bombards God with repeated usage of the expression “OK.”)

I wonder how often God hears sincere prayers that get modified later on? I’ve read about guys in combat who prayed, “God, if you get me out of this, I’ll join the seminary and become a priest,” but after surviving the battle, they forget all about their promise. I suspect God cuts them some slack and doesn’t hold it against them, since having other people shoot at you is kind of stressful. (I don’t know this from firsthand experience, as I try to stay out of Hartford at night, but I’m pretty sure it’s true.)

I hope God cuts me some slack, too, since my original prayer was motivated by my intense love for my children and my sincere desire to put them through college. Now that they have college degrees, I realize my intense love for my children is matched only by my intense love of not being dead.

Some theologians say that God hears all prayer requests, but He only gives people what they truly need, not what they ask for. The idea is that we are generally way too short-sighted and selfish when we pray, and if all of our requests were granted, our lives would be ruined. When I consider some of the things I’ve prayed for over the years, I have to agree. I think this doctrine is found in the Book of the Prophet Jagger: “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you find you get what you need.”

But just to be safe, I have a new prayer: “Dear Lord, please let me remain alive and healthy and gainfully employed at least until my as yet unborn grandchildren get through college—or until the federal government has a balanced budget, whichever comes first. Not croaking anytime soon is something I’m definitely OK with. OK, Lord?”

There, that sounds OK to me, and it should keep me around for a while longer—unless my daily diet of donuts and bacon and Hostess Fruit Pies have any say in the matter.