Mont La Salle, Napa California
These days, with all the bad things happening almost everywhere and everyday, I pray that God corrects all the wrongs and evil in this world. But when I come to my spiritual senses, I realize how presumptuous I am. Sometimes, I even suggest solutions to the problems as I see them. Okay, I practically tell God what to do, pretending I knew everything and I had the correct answer.
The sin I often commit and confess is that I would pray and ask God for more blessings as though the ones that he has sent me are not enough; and I need to ask him for more. I am not only being ungrateful but even suffer from a misplaced sense of entitlement, specially when I pray for material blessings.
Be careful what you pray for. God might just be given to you. I remember Mama who used to caution us against praying for long life – this, towards her end-days when she was feeling weary and lonely. Life has a strange way of turning hoped for blessings into burdens and unwanted burdens into blessings in disguise.
Life is fleeting and fragile to be spent in misguided wants and desires. Every moment we live is already a blessing and it will be as meaningful and as joyful as I make it. In the same manner, it will be as problematic and difficult as I allow it to be.