A dear friend warned me of this.

A dear friend warned me of this.

She told me that as soon as I was done with college, I would find myself with a surplus of time and a degree of freedom that was before unthinkable. With this time, she shared, I might find myself reading more books, finding more adventures, and sitting alone with more of my thoughts. She’s said that she learned more in the three months since she graduated college than she ever did taking classes.

In the three days and six hours since I graduated college, I have begun my journey down a similar road.

What follows might be considered the first really burdensome lesson upon which I have been dwelling.

Last week, I asked Deb how I might try to pray for a situation whose desired outcome is unclear. On one hand, I might pray for something to happen. On the other hand, of course, I might also have cause to pray for the same thing to not happen. And sometimes, it’s just not clear which way to pray.

“So, do we just pray that God’s will be done?” I asked with a hint of confused desperation.

I don’t exactly recall the words she chose in response to my inquiry. What I do recall is her discouraging me from such a prayer. She said something about it reducing God to a puppet-animator God.

“But isn’t that how Jesus taught us how to pray?”

I pondered this question in silence, sitting on the couch in her office.

A puppet-God?

Now, almost a week later, I am still preoccupied with the question of how we pray for (and about) the things toward which we harbor uncertainty.

In the past I have prayed for abundant clarity. Dear God, I might begin, please make it abundantly clear what you would have me do here.

Abundantly clear; that there be no room for doubt or uncertainty; that God show me with decisive certainty what I am to do; that God do the work of discernment for me.

What am I praying for when I ask God to make something abundantly clear?

On one hand, as a former high school teacher of mine answered on my Facebook page, I am in this prayer asking for “Clarity and/or discernment. And/or for direction.”

And that’s completely true.

But I’m also asking for something more. I’m asking that God do the work for me.

Aren’t I?

I could, of course, do what our forefathers and foremothers have done through the ages–pray and fast and wait on the Lord’s voice. I could wait and wait and wait for that point at which I might begin to discern God’s will for me.

Or I could pray that God make the next steps abundantly clear. This sure would save a lot of work, wouldn’t it?

What am I praying for when I ask God to make something abundantly clear?

I’m praying that God give me a pass; that I not need to perform any legitimate effort of discernment on my own.

My sense is that to pray for abundant clarity might reduce God to the puppet figure that Deb told me about on the couch.

Considering these points, how do we go about praying? For what do we pray? Why does a simple prayer for discernment seem so… inadequate?

(Am I completely off base here?)

Sometimes questions arise that we have a hard time immediately dismissing.

My dear friend has told me before how there are certain unsettling questions that she literally feels. There are issues with which she wrestles that affect her in a very real and physical way. There are questions that build a home inside of us, refusing to leave until we have satisfactorily addressed them.

This is one of them.

What am I praying for when I ask God to make something abundantly clear?