Prayer

Its hot outside! May 13th and 93+ F. I wish it would rain. It seems like its been forever since it rained. There is a 30 percent chance this weekend. I pray it does.

As I was watering my garden this afternoon I prayed that God would send rain and then I remembered a story I heard about two monks. Each of them had a small olive tree they were trying to grow. One of them prayed for rain, prayed for frost, prayed for sun, basically all the the things he could think of that the plant needed to grow. Eventually his tree died, but his brother monk had a flourishing tree! He asked his brother what he had prayed for his tree and he said "I just prayed that God would give it everything it needed to grow into a strong tree and He did!"

I think sometimes it is perfectly OK to pray specifically for what you want or need, but how many times might it be much better to simply pray "Lord, you know what is best, please provide for my needs".