Assignment 3 - God and Prayer

I do not have many life experiences where I have asked God for something in prayer; or at least none that are really life changing that I would want to reflect on. I do believe in the power of prayer though. I almost think that my requests of God are always petty. For instance, I ask God to help me find things such as my keys and or my wallet. These conversations go something like this: "God, please help me find my keys in the next 10 minutes so that I am not late for work." Sometimes it goes a bit deeper than that though. I sometimes feel lonely and ask God to help me find a girlfriend. This request is still pending so there is not much to reflect on now. I have come to the realization that God has a bigger plan for me than just the day to day "requests," so I try to go with the flow and when I pray, I normally just try to talk to Him about things that happened previously in my life. I like to see God as my big dad that I can just pour out to. This lesson reminds me of the song by Garth Brooks (one of my favorite by him) called "Unanswered Prayers." The song basically tells a story about how "he" once asked God for his "old flame" or girlfriend but winds up with his wife and he thanks God that He didn't answer that prayer. Anyway, I think there is one prayer (or lack there of) that was a hard lesson from God. In my old youth group we had a tradition that we put our names in a hat and drew each others names to be prayed for by that person for the next week. Well, I pulled one of my new friends names and shoved that signed paper into my pants pocket to be forgotten. A couple of days later, I hear on the news and from my family that he died in a car accident. I of course then remember that slip of paper crumpled at the bottom of my pocket and was hit in the stomach with the hard lesson straight from God's righteous fist. My faith was challenged that day and it really got me thinking of the importance and power that the act of prayer can have. Though it was a hard lesson to swallow, my faith is stronger now for it. I think this can be compared to Abraham's story when God told him to sacrifice his son. Abraham must not have liked this yet he still went on and was going to go through with killing his son. God sometimes shows himself in hard lessons of faith such as this and my story, even if it's the last possible moment. These stories help me know that even though God may not answer, he will always keep his promises and my best interest in mind according to His ultimate plan.