As a young child I believed in a Santa Claus God. If I wanted something, I prayed for it and then waited for it to happen. After a few long waits, I decided I could get what I wanted faster somewhere else and sort of gave up on prayer. Oh, I prayed because it was expected, but I didn't really believe it would be answered, certainly not as I wanted it to be. So why bother?
Then as a young adult along came a good looking Presbyterian pastor named Peter Marshal who was married to a woman named Catherine. I started reading their books and my attitude toward prayer changed. I followed a prayer journal that she had published and it really helped to see that my prayers were answered, but not by Santa Claus. God is real and he answers in ways that improve my life, even ways that are not necessarily as I see it.
I like the following verse from James, who I refer to lovingly as Killjoy. He reminds me of the stern inflexible parent whose advice I resist, but know in my heart and mind that his advice is true and much better than what I can conjure up. God is not dead, but the Santa Claus concept is and for good reason. I asked with wrong motives.
"What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures." James 4:1-3
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