The Secret To Getting What You Want Through Prayerಮಾದರಿ

My youngest daughter performed in a local production of Peter Pan a few years back. Peter Pan is a classic, and I enjoyed every minute of it. One of my favorite scenes has always been when Wendy and her brothers first learn how to fly. Peter tries to explain to them how easy it is to fly. They can do it simply by thinking happy thoughts. 

“All you need is a little faith, trust and pixie dust,” Peter says, with a grin on his face. Happy thought after happy thought enters the children’s minds, and, within no time, they are flying high. 

If only prayer were that simple. 

But, actually, it is. 

God has told us repeatedly in His Word that all we need is faith and trust. In fact, He’s told us that we don’t even need that much—a mustard seed will do. 

We bring the mustard seed; He adds pixie dust. Easy-peasy, according to God. 

These verses (and more) affirm just that: Mark 11:23–24, Matthew 17:20, Mark 9:23, Matthew 7:7–8, Ephesians 3:20, 1 John 5:14, Matthew 21:21–22, Luke 1:37, Psalm 37:5, Matthew 15:28, Mark 11:22 and John 15:7.

Faith. Trust. That’s all we need to not only move the mountains in our lives but to also apparently bring down any unwanted fig trees, raise the dead, walk on water and basically have everything we wish. He did say, “Ask whatever you wish,” after all. And most of us do. But like the penny tossed into the shopping mall fountain, those wishes wind up silently drowning beneath ripples of doubt. 

This is the same doubt that made it impossible for Wendy to fly once she became an adult. It’s not an evil, sinister doubt by any means. It doesn’t entail walking around entirely angry, bitter and jaded. Rather, it’s an awareness of reality—what our five senses and experiences have taught us each and every day. It is doubt designed to protect us from potential disappointment. Doubt drafted by what we see, hear and expect.

Peter came back for Wendy (if you remember the story). The pixie dust was still available for her to use. All Wendy had to do was think those same happy thoughts she had done once before and she could go on another grand adventure. 

But Wendy knew "better" by then. She knew even happy thoughts would come with the stuff of life—realities of hurt, limitations and challenges. She knew that unicorns were not actually real, and neither were mermaids, and anything she tried to think about to bring pure joy had somehow been tainted by an internal awareness that things don’t always turn out as we had hoped. 

Maybe you’ve experienced something similar? 

It’s okay to admit it.

After all, we all do eventually grow up.