If I Got What I Wanted

Have you ever imagined if the world was exactly what we all seem to want it to be? You know, what they call "the best possible world." I doubt that any of us would actually want it if we got it.

You know what I'm talking about. Bad things happen. Or good things don't. Loved ones die. Dear people get injured or sick. We lose jobs, stuff, relationships. We want X and we pray dearly for X and ... we don't get X. In fact, sometimes we get Z instead. Like that was the answer we were hoping for. But what if all that we expected from God we got?

I think we couldn't imagine the consequences of such an existence. Never mind the problem of trying to worship a Holy Butler. If we arrive at the point where we dictate what God will do, then we will be God.

Then, of course, you have the obvious problem of conflicting prayers. "Lord, we need rain for our crops." "Lord, we need clear skies for our family vacation." Which will it be? But that would be the least difficult of the problems.

If death is one of our biggest problems, what would it be like without it? People complain about crowded conditions, but if no one ever died, you could not imagine what that would be like. "Oh, no," someone might counter, "we'd just stop having children." That's all well and good, except we're operating here on a "whatever I want" basis and lots of people want children. Conversely, if we stopped having children, the joy of parenthood would vanish. No win.

One serious casualty would be gratitude. If we always get what we want, we would always expect to get what we want and whatever we got would be expected, not appreciated.

A problem for humans is that we don't understand consequences. We can't really see the future. So we think up "good things" that we're sure would be helpful and positive and they turn out to be destructive and fatal. Take, for instance, cohabitation. "We want to live together first to see if we are compatible." Seems simple, even reasonable. Except that, as it turns out, people who live together before marriage have a 50%-80% higher likelihood of divorce than those who don't. So in working to "test the waters", it seems, you poison the well (so to speak). (And, oh, by the way, having your first child after marriage reduces divorce risk somewhere between 24%-66%.)

We think we know what's best. We don't. We think we know how all things should work together for good. We don't. Jesus taught, "Pray then like this: 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven'" (Matt 6:9-10). Really? Do we want His kingdom to come, or would we like to just establish our own? Do we really want His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven? Because in heaven His will is executed perfectly and completely every time. Is that what you want?

I cannot imagine a world predicated on "what I want." That, I suppose, is because I concur that I have a deceitful heart (Jer 17:9), that I am a man in need of saving. I like to think that I'm pretty good at this kind of stuff, but the truth is the best I ever get is agreeing with God. What He does is good and right and best. Just because I can't always see it doesn't make it not so. I don't always understand what He's doing, but I do know I'm not the one that should be telling Him what's best. I'm pretty sure you aren't that one either. So I'll just trust Him, even when it isn't comfortable. It turns out, I believe, that this is the "best possible world."