06/11/2024
When I was in high school, a Christian artist named Larry Bryant wrote a song called “Shopping List.” The song offers a prayer that says, “Thank you for your family, your mercy and your love. Now, on to more important things. I’ll give my magic lamp a rub. Give me this, I want that, bless me Lord I pray. Grant me what I think I need to make it through the day. Make me wealthy, keep me healthy, fill in what I missed on my never-ending shopping list.”
Sometimes I find myself praying a similar prayer. Aren’t Christians supposed to pray for God to provide, and isn’t God concerned about even the smallest detail of our lives? Well, yes. But the ultimate goal of prayer isn’t for God’s provision but for His presence.
God is not our Genie in a bottle. The central focus of the Christian life is surrender, and that often sounds like nails screeching across a blackboard. Rather than surrender, we desire success. Rather than the Comforter (John 14:16), we long for personal comforts. I know because many of my prayers have been just like that.
Larry Bryant’s “Shopping List” goes on to say, “Lord, you’ve been so good to me. How could I ask for more? But since you said to ask, I will, ‘cause what else is prayer for? The cattle on a thousand hills, they all belong to you. I don’t need any cows right now, but something else might do.”
I heard a sermon recently where the speaker said he had three main loves in life, and EVERYTHING he did in life revolved around those three loves: his marriage, his children, and his job. Due to unforeseen circumstances, he lost his marriage, his kids grew up, and his job no longer brought him pleasure. The speaker went on to say, “I was not living an adulterous life, but an idolatrous one. I put other things before God, and I paid the price.”
When we want God to give us good things more than we want God Himself, we are guilty of idolatry. 19th-century preacher John Flavel once wrote, “Every man loves the mercies of God, but a saint loves the God of his mercies” (The Mystery of Providence).
Regarding Larry Bryant’s song, he said his inspiration came from a prayer circle where someone prayed, “Lord, sometimes it seems like we just come before you with our shopping list of things we want.” A little bell went off in his head, and the song was born.
I find myself praying far too many shopping-list prayers. What I’m slowly discovering, however, is that “the great thrill of the Christian life is that when we see past our petitions to God, we behold God himself” (Beyond Our Control, 23).
I hope you deepen your prayer life from mere personal satisfaction to the satisfaction of a personal relationship with the One who grants us His presence, Jesus the Nazarene.
