Every need in its time

Ecclesiasticus 39:33 All the works of the Lord are good and he will supply every need in its time.

I have trouble with "in its time" sometimes. I am feeling impatient and anxious waiting to receive confirmation on something I want very much, but it is out of my control and there is nothing I can do about it! That doesn't stop me ruminating on a pretty regular basis, using incantations, anything I can think of to bring this to the conclusion that I want. But none of that actually helps. So daily, hourly even, I have to surrender it to God knowing it is out of my hands. My tendency is to keep it in my mind as if I could get the people in charge to take the action I want just by thinking about it. I don't know, I suppose it's possible some people have the ability to have an effect in that way, but I do know I don't. So I pray, starting off with surrender but usually quickly morphing into a petitionary, "oh, please, oh please, oh please", as if my assumption is if I pray about this enough I can make it happen, which is really some notion that God will do my bidding if I just ask often enough. However, if I can summon God the way Harry Potter the wizard can summon spirits, then it isn't God at all, but some creature of my own imagination. Prayer like that is just another version of superstition, using incantations or lucky charms, what have you. I remember a ditty from my childhood, "Step on a crack and break your mother's back", and how I would avoid cracks all the way home. Aside from the ghoulishness of this, it's kid stuff. This is how children think of God, sort of a heavenly ATM.

In an adult world, we recognize where we have control -- over my behaviors and attitudes -- and where I don't, which is pretty much everything else (people, places, things and events). We know that God is not just there to provide us with what we want at any given time. God is mystery; God is the ground of being beyond all our longings for the material; God is the source of longing, for ultimately all longing is about the longing to experience God eternally present, which is at best glimpsed on occasion, unless you are a tried and true mystic. Dealing with mystery, surrender really means giving it up, really giving it up completely, and making peace with whatever the outcome is, knowing God will be present no matter what happens. I have a friend who recently went into a serious operation. Beforehand, the doctor said, "I wish I could tell you you're going to be all right." He meant, physically healed. But my friend said, "I am going to be all right." Later she told me, "He doesn't get it, he doesn't realize that no matter what happens I'll be all right, because God will be with me." That's surrender, knowing in peace that whatever happens, it will be all right. As Julian of Norwich repeated almost as a mantra: And all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.

Prayer: Dear God, You know my longing for this event, how much I want it and pray for it to happen -- like the persistent widow. Help me remember that I have done all I can, and that all that is left is to give the result to you, truly surrender the outcome in trust, faith and love. Amen.