Prayer for a Lottery Ticket – Part II (Nov 27th, 2010)

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. – Jeremiah 29:11

So you all have just read my story about praying for and winning the two tickets for the Thanksgiving rival game in the graduate students’ raffle. Now here is an unexpected twist to that story as I went to the game I had been thrilling for…

We lost this rival game in a really ugly way. Basically, we had a glorious and exciting first 30 seconds; then the rest of the game was a complete disaster, in our own stadium! I took home nothing but a cold and full of disappointment – I could not have expected this when I won the raffle tickets! For a while I even thought, it would not be as big a deal if I did not win those tickets. 

But isn't this what happens when God withholds something from us some time? He could see down the road that we would not be able to enjoy it, or the result might even be too dangerous or harmful for His beloved children, so He decides to withhold it from us, whatever we were asking for. Yet I would have been so mad if He had not answer my prayer at the time of the raffle and went ahead to give the tickets to a drunk or high dude. I would have thought He was so unfair. In life, how many times have we complained about God not listening to our prayers and gives unfair favor to those who “do not deserve it” (not to forget that includes us too!)? Yet He is the only one who can see down the road whether we would be able to truly enjoy what we are asking for at this moment, or even whether that would harm us later, which are the things He has to withhold from us at this moment. I have always liked Jeremiah 29:11: “I know the plan I have for you, plan to proper you and not to harm you, to give you hope and a future”. He does have the best plan for us, not just the big where-to-go-after-this-life plan, but a plan that is detailed into every bit of our lives. He always knows the best for us, not just big goodies like salvation, but as small as a raffle ticket and a football game...