Hello, my siblings in Christ, I am Bojan and in this short video, I will comment on the way God answers prayers. Now, God isn’t magic. God does not answer prayers in the same way. However, there is one way that He seems to be particularly fond of.
You’re familiar with this trope. Someone finds a genie lamp and frees the genie. The man wishes for something like immortality. Now, two things can happen here: in the case of a literal genie, genie will stick to the letter of the wish. The man might become immortal, but regret his wish bitterly when all of his family and friends start to die of old age and secret agencies set out to get him in order to see why he can’t die. In the case of a jerkass genie, the genie will interpret the wish in a malicious manner, so the man might get turned to stone, get frozen in time and or something similar.
Now, I’m not implying that God answers prayers like that EXCEPT THAT HE DOES.
I should elaborate, however. Let me give you an example.
In the Orthodox Church, we have this beautiful prayer that we recite throughout the Great Lent, called the Lenten Prayer of St. Ephrem of Syria. Each petition is followed by a prostration. The prayer goes like this:
“O Lord and Master of my life, take from me the spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power, and idle talk. *thud*
But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to Thy servant. *thud*
Yea, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own transgressions, and not to judge my brother, for blessed art Thou, unto ages of ages. Amen. *thud*
That thudding sound is me making the prostration.
Uroš: No, that’s him kicking the microphone.
Anyway…
In the second petition, we ask for the spirit of humility.
This is how I expect to get that spirit of humility.
I am praying, okay, and suddenly, I see a burst of light. I see an angel descending, holding a big cheese pie in his hands. I fall to the ground, and the angel says:
"Arise, Bojan, and eat of this pie."
I reply: "No, Lord, for I have never broken fast."
And the angel replies: "Yeah right, fatso, we all know that halo made of fat isn’t from fish and lettuce. Now, eat of this pie.”
So, I eat as commanded. It is a really good pie, and I suddenly get the requested spirit of humility, so when I pass people by in the street, they turn their heads and are all like: “Wow, he’s soooo humble!”
That’s not how God does things. I mean, He might, but it is very doubtful. How I got my prayer answered, in part, is that God gave this… person in my life.
Now, imagine a person that is extremely annoying. Everything they do is grating your nerves. Every interaction you have with them tests your limits - and you practically have no choice but to unwind with a coworker.
That person is my opportunity for that requested gift of humility - and for a greater gift even, that of love. I need to love that person despite their flaws - and more importantly, despite my flaws, despite my impatience and despite my desire to control everything.
Whenever you pray for something, know that rarely you will just get it. However, the Lord will put you in a situation where you will prove your actual desire to obtain it. We all want to be filled with virtues, but we rarely want to fight for them. It is the same with people. There is truth in the old saying: “Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die.” This is Christianity; in order to be resurrected, you need to perish on the cross, and for every cross, there is a resurrection. Epistle of Hebrews says that there can be no remissions of sins without shedding of blood. That is how serious it gets. So - how far are you willing to go in order for the Lord to grant what you ask of Him?
You’re familiar with this trope. Someone finds a genie lamp and frees the genie. The man wishes for something like immortality. Now, two things can happen here: in the case of a literal genie, genie will stick to the letter of the wish. The man might become immortal, but regret his wish bitterly when all of his family and friends start to die of old age and secret agencies set out to get him in order to see why he can’t die. In the case of a jerkass genie, the genie will interpret the wish in a malicious manner, so the man might get turned to stone, get frozen in time and or something similar.
Now, I’m not implying that God answers prayers like that EXCEPT THAT HE DOES.
I should elaborate, however. Let me give you an example.
In the Orthodox Church, we have this beautiful prayer that we recite throughout the Great Lent, called the Lenten Prayer of St. Ephrem of Syria. Each petition is followed by a prostration. The prayer goes like this:
“O Lord and Master of my life, take from me the spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power, and idle talk. *thud*
But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to Thy servant. *thud*
Yea, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own transgressions, and not to judge my brother, for blessed art Thou, unto ages of ages. Amen. *thud*
That thudding sound is me making the prostration.
Uroš: No, that’s him kicking the microphone.
Anyway…
In the second petition, we ask for the spirit of humility.
This is how I expect to get that spirit of humility.
I am praying, okay, and suddenly, I see a burst of light. I see an angel descending, holding a big cheese pie in his hands. I fall to the ground, and the angel says:
"Arise, Bojan, and eat of this pie."
I reply: "No, Lord, for I have never broken fast."
And the angel replies: "Yeah right, fatso, we all know that halo made of fat isn’t from fish and lettuce. Now, eat of this pie.”
So, I eat as commanded. It is a really good pie, and I suddenly get the requested spirit of humility, so when I pass people by in the street, they turn their heads and are all like: “Wow, he’s soooo humble!”
That’s not how God does things. I mean, He might, but it is very doubtful. How I got my prayer answered, in part, is that God gave this… person in my life.
Now, imagine a person that is extremely annoying. Everything they do is grating your nerves. Every interaction you have with them tests your limits - and you practically have no choice but to unwind with a coworker.
That person is my opportunity for that requested gift of humility - and for a greater gift even, that of love. I need to love that person despite their flaws - and more importantly, despite my flaws, despite my impatience and despite my desire to control everything.
Whenever you pray for something, know that rarely you will just get it. However, the Lord will put you in a situation where you will prove your actual desire to obtain it. We all want to be filled with virtues, but we rarely want to fight for them. It is the same with people. There is truth in the old saying: “Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die.” This is Christianity; in order to be resurrected, you need to perish on the cross, and for every cross, there is a resurrection. Epistle of Hebrews says that there can be no remissions of sins without shedding of blood. That is how serious it gets. So - how far are you willing to go in order for the Lord to grant what you ask of Him?
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