Rub the Bible, Make 3 Wishes

Before you read this post, I must make a confession, this post’s title actually started off as the title of one of my previous posts published here, Prayer: A Four-Step Plan. As I was writing, I realized what I had in my head was far longer than what would fit neatly on one page, I needed to break things up a bit. Of course, this will always be a struggle, but this was the first time I had to deal with it here. I bring this up for one selfish reason, the title I was planning to use was just too good not to use, so I am using it here to summarize my struggle with prayer over the years.

When I first started praying, my prayers focused on my personal needs. Oh, I prayed for others, but very shortly they would always come back to, “what about me?” My prayers were similar to Aladdin and his magic lamp. I would rub the Bible, figuratively speaking of course, and recite my wish list. Once I was done, I would get up, leave for work, and expect God to take care of it by the time I got home. After all, weren’t we told to take everything to prayer and just leave everything in God’s hands?

Can I help it if I am literate? Remember, I started as a technical writer. You do not write press any key, because people will ultimately press the wrong key.

Now I know this sounds stupid and self-centered, which I must admit was how I started off, but I must ask, haven’t you prayed like this in the past? Worse yet, on some level, I expected God to deliver.

My one saving grace, one in which I am eternally grateful, is that when God did not deliver as expected, I never got angry enough to walk away from Him. Well, there was once this girl I had a huge crush on in my teenage years that I prayed about like crazy, but that is another confession for another time.

As I look back, I never walked away for one simple reason, I loved God, I honestly loved Him. I was in love with Him long before I ever gave my life to Jesus.

Somewhere in these pages I mentioned that one of the jobs I held early on was working at an A&W Drive-In. This was back in the days when it was safe to walk around as a teenager. I did all the time. That was my transportation home, except those nights when it was raining when my dad would pick me up. The drive-in was two or so miles from our house, and even though it was summer, it was dark all the way home with only a streetlight here or a lighted house there to guide me along. There were also the stars.

With the darkness all around me, the stars were in full display of their glory. The sky seemed brighter than the streets I traveled to get home. And the moon, so bright at times that it helped light my way home.

I do not understand how anyone can look at the sky above them, night or day, and think that all they are seeing simply happened by “chance”. Never for a moment did I believe that was possible. God had a hand in its creation, which only could mean He had a hand in my creation as well. Those nights under the stars caused my spirit to sing and praise God as I walked home. I also prayed, prayer just naturally poured out from my praise. It was during those wonderful walks home where I truly learned to pray. If you ever find yourself struggling to talk with God, just spend an hour or two under a summer night’s sky.

I still have that first Bible that shows some wear and tear from my rubbing during prayer. It is a treasured keepsake. Yet, even if I had never gotten past the rubbing stage, at least it was picked up and rubbed, rather than being left on some shelf gathering dust.

When was the last time you opened, or even rubbed, your Bible?