Making the Team
“Not as I will, but as You will.”
Matthew 26:39
By Jill Briscoe
Our son Peter was trying out for the basketball team and asked me to pray he would acquire one of the coveted positions.
I was going away, but informed our younger son that I would pray about the selection of players. “I’ll ask that the right thing will happen for you,” I told him.
Pete shot me a somewhat apprehensive glance. “Don’t do that, Mom,” he pleaded. “Just pray that I make the team!”
Teenage sentiments? Amusing? Perhaps, but how like my praying! So often I don’t want the right thing to happen; I just want to make the team. I can remember praying “Pete prayers” when I was very young. “O God,” I would say, “I want a pretty day on Saturday,” or “Please help me to pass the examination without having to do any studying!” Children make such elementary requests.
But when we become adults, we are supposed to put away childish things (see 1 Cor. 13:11). God intends us to learn how to praise Him for Saturday’s rain, and to ask Him for help as we do our homework.
Peter grew up to play basketball for his college. The last time I talked to him about making the team, he was trying hard to qualify for a place. “Pray for me, Mom,” he said.
“What for, Pete?” I asked.
“Pray I will make the team only if I’m the best man for the job,” he said quietly. Pete has come a long way. Have you; have I? Prayer after all is the means by which we sense God’s desires, and they become our own. We might even begin to care more about the team than we care about the team’s caring for us!
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