God Answers

The other day I posted a blog called “Praying for Acceptance” which contemplated, among other things, how god responds to our prayers.

Afterward, I realized I was using the word “Answers” as a verb, when maybe it is a noun and singular, as in: what would be a god answer?

This thought rose up while reading a little more of author and former preacher Barbara Brown Taylor’s book A Geography of Faith: An Altar in the World. This is a book I’ve been slowly piecing my way through over the past few months, and two days ago I experienced a shift in perspective while reading through her chapter “The Practice of Being Present to God: Prayer” when I read this line: “Are you still waiting for God to answer you, or is your life the answer you have been seeking, hiding in plain view?”

That was a big one for me. In fact it stopped me in my tracks, and anything that has the power to actually prompt us to pause in our 24/7 move, move, move, hurry, hurry, hurry lives certainly deserves at least a moment of recognition.  Because Ms. Taylor’s suggestion is far different from what I had been considering just a week ago when I wrote that god may answer my prayers with 3 possible responses: 1.) Yes, 2.) Not right now, or 3.) No, because I have another plan for you.

And it is not just semantics. Ms. Taylor’s offering is actually asking more of me and my relationship with god than just prayer as a conversation. She is suggesting I infuse two areas into my prayer life that I find very hard to call on: trust and faith. She says:

In the same way that I am willing to thank my husband for a gift even before I have opened it--because I know him, because I trust his love for me, because I have faith we will survive even if he has given me a pneumatic nail gun for my birthday--I am willing to thank God for my life even before I know how it turns out. This is brave talk, I know, while I can still pay the bills, walk without assistance, and talk to someone into going to the movie with me. My hope is that if I can practice saying thank you now, when I still approve of most of what is happening to me, then perhaps that practice will have become habit by the time I do not like much of anything that is happening to me. The plan is to replace approval with gratitude. The plan is to take what is as God’s ongoing answer to me.”

Serendipitously, when I was writing about my prayer life a week ago, it was in the context of asking for help with acceptance. It would seem Ms. Taylor’s proposal of seeing my own life as god’s answer hits the nail on the head for this one. Maybe I got my answer after all…

How do you view god’s answer?