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The other day my sister Betsy sent me a video clip of a comedian saying that there are certain things he won’t pray for, such as when his friend asked him to pray that he would pass his drug test. “I’m not praying for that.” Or when his sister asked that he pray for his nephew who has tendonitis from holding his iPad too often. He said, “I’m not praying for that. I’m not praying for him because he spent too much time watching ‘Paw Patrol.’ I’m not going to bother God with this petty nonsense when there’s prayers coming in for widows, orphans, and cancer patients.”
I told my sister that we can pray for anything. There’s no such thing as a wasted prayer. She said, “What if I pray for world domination?” So what if she prayed for world domination? My initial thoughts are that if she prayed for world domination—if she was truly seeking communion with God to present her petition— that God would reply by asking, “Why?”
I was recently praying the dual prayers of Anne Lamott, “Help me, help me, help me,” and, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” I zeroed in on the help me portion of the prayer, and the question of why popped into my head. Why did I want help? After thinking a moment, I decided I wanted help being better. Better at what? Better at loving my neighbor as myself. It was a wonderful moment of clarity and it was helpful to articulate what I wanted.
But what about world domination? I think that God would ask why she wanted to dominate the world and would continue to press her until she was able to discern what it was she really wanted, probably not world domination. The problem with wanting world domination is once you’re on top, you’re always on the lookout for someone trying to knock you down, ala king of the hill.
Prayer is about communicating with God, but it is also about bringing our petitions to God; we are reminded of this throughout the New Testament. But the idea that we could ever bother God with our requests is silly; there’s nothing we can do that bothers God. God is always glad to hear from us, regardless of why we are calling. We are continually guilty of applying human limitations to God, but God is without limit, beginning or end. We will never tire out God with our questions or requests though God may ask why we are asking, which often leads to deeper communion with God, helping us to love our neighbor as ourselves.
—Fr. Jason
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