It looked okay but when I bit into it tasted...strange...bad... well, just wrong. My best friend in he school had a Mom who was a real kind lady. But unfortunately kindness doesn't make one a good cook. In this case it doesn't even guarantee that a person can make French toast. But she was so nice I even feel a little guilty saying anything about this. But the powdered sugar she put on our toast tasted bad. That was because it was corn starch. It was early and she grabbed the wrong container, and we paid the price. Did I mention how nice she was?
I am thinking about prayer. I think too often we view prayer like a blind folded reach into the cupboard. We might get what we're looking for but we fear (because we think there's a 50-50 chance) we might just get the corn starch instead. This creates a crazy kind of prayer life. It creates a prayer paranoia that reduces prayer to magic.
You see, in magic you've got to say the phrase exactly right or you may not get what it is you're asking for. And in the worse case, saying the wrong phrase could turn you into a coco puff. That may be how it is in magic, but praying to the living God is not like that. (He prefers captain crunch). Some of this hocus pocus theology comes intertwined in phrases like, "pray specific." Now I suppose it is a good idea to be specific with our requests to God. But specificity in our prayers is needed for our clarity not God's. After all it’s not a toddler we are speaking to. I believe the author of the universe has pretty good grasp of the difference between corn starch and powder sugar.
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