Anytime you read some Scripture that makes you think of the Spice Girls, it's worth meditating on for a while.
So yesterday we talked about how the disciples still don't get it, even as Jesus is getting ready to leave them. Jesus is talking about the Kingdom of God, the disciples are asking about the Kingdom of Israel--and by that, meaning a geo-political-military establishment.
From my vantage point now, I'm a bit incredulous: they're still clueless? After all this time?
But if I step back and consider all this, it's an extremely short trip from the disciples requests to many of the things that I've prayed for over my life. How many things have I asked for along the way that I look back on now with a mixture of horror at the request and relief that it was not granted?
How many things am I currently praying for that I'll look back on in five or ten years and think the same things?
Jesus, in his patience and love, invites us to ask with reckless abandon. To quote the great prophets, The Spice Girls: tell me what you want, what you really, really want.
Ask your Father, he says, he'll provide for you. This authentic, genuine asking is part of what it means to have the faith of a little child. A child asks for what she or he wants without pretense and without qualifying or hedging too much.
And so we are invited to ask for the things that we want. But not all requests are created equal.
And there's a call for us to grow up into Christ. Part of that growing up means that we always stay playful as a child in approaching our good Father.
And part of that growing up means that as we submit our requests to God in the fullest sense of the word. We submit our hearts' desires to God, and in the process he is not only considering those requests, he's also shaping our hearts to desire his will.
It's a process that's never done, but it's essential to growing up in Christ-likeness.
So we shouldn't be too hard on the disciples and some of us need to embrace the Spice Girls-exhortation to tell God what we really, really want. And we should all be glad that he doesn't always give it to us.
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