A Magic 8 Ball Faith

This summer was a time for centering myself again in a daily time of prayer, study and simply being in the presence of God. It is easy to simply let that discipline to fade away amongst the busyness and distractions any of us face. I've had to come to terms with my own Magic 8 Ball kind of prayer life that I have led at times in the past. I know enough about the ways of God that I know that ya' just don't get answers like you do when you ask the ball a question and turn it upside, and lo and behold, ya' get your answer!


No, I already knew that. But what I really still believe, and so much hope it to be true because I it would make the living of life much easy, is that once in a while God does work that way. Here are the phrases that are on the magic 8 ball die according to Wikipedia:

The 20 standard answers on a Magic 8-Ball are:
● As I see it, yes
● It is certain
● It is decidedly so
● Most likely
● Outlook good
● Signs point to yes
● Without a doubt
● Yes
● Yes - definitely
● You may rely on it
● Reply hazy, try again
● Ask again later
● Better not tell you now
● Cannot predict now
● Concentrate and ask again
● Don't count on it
● My reply is no
● My sources say no
● Outlook not so good
● Very doubtful

It has seemed to me that more than the odds would allow I get the "Reply hazy, try again" and "Better not tell you now" messages from my prayer time. Sort of hazy. Like God is trying to tell me something, something grand and wonderful, but I don't get it so he tells me to try again, and again and again. Sometimes I can see those signs pointing to yes, even if the yes isn't exactly a yes to my request.

And yeah, it's true that indeed God better not tell me now, or I will go make a muck of it, trod all over the place trying and trying something to make whatever it is happen that he is told me about, really taking all the gift and grace out of it.

What I have learned is that God indeed can do far more than we can ask or imagine. God answers questions that we don't even know we have. When we ask for bread, God provides a banquet. When we ask that this cup might pass from us, we find that it already has in the cross of Christ. When we ask for a a miracle, God provides sometimes the light of fulfillment of our meager request; and, sometimes God provides the darkness in which we wander around in, not knowing where we are going, till there somehow, in that darkness and in our circuitous journey we find that we are winding our way to a greater grace.

I kinda like Magic 8 Balls, they are fun, but merely fun. When I think that the answer to my prayer is stuck down in the bottom of that gelatinous goo where the answers roll around, the answer may be "learn to trust the Presence, not the answer."