“One evening I was riding home after a long period [of working] in the hospital, feeling tired and hungry and at least a bit discouraged. … I was, frankly, finding it hard to just keep pedaling.
“My route would take me past a fried chicken shop, and I felt like I would be a lot less hungry and tired if I could pause for a piece of chicken on my way home. I knew they were running a sale on thighs or drumsticks for 29 cents each, but when I checked my wallet, all I had was one nickel [5 cents].”
As you may have guessed by the title, Elder Cornish decided to pray, and he asked God to help him find a quarter with which he could buy the desired piece of fried chicken.
The article goes on to share many principles on prayer, using Elder Cornish's story as it's main source and including many quotes from other General Authorities as references. The article stuck out to me first because of its relevance, and also because of its formatting. I might pattern future blog posts after this article.
As for sharing the message of the article, there are too many good messages to share. I'll just pick one or two of the principles.
1 “As I rode along, I told the Lord my situation and asked if, in His mercy, He could let me find a quarter on the side of the road.”
I sometimes wonder why, when we pray for help, we're asked to tell God about our situation (which He already knows) and propose a solution (when He has probably already thought of several better ones). If He already knows what's going on, why would He want us to tell Him? And wouldn't it be wiser to ask the wiser person what they think is best rather than to suggest whatever solution we were able to think of?
You've probably heard that the teacher learns more than those that they teach. Maybe that applies to prayers, too. When we "teach" God what our situation is, perhaps the point of that is to give us the chance to see our situation more clearly, and to see it more from the perspective from which God would see it. That way, we can be wiser in discerning what our problem is and what we truly need.
Then, we are asked to propose a solution. After we've reflected on our situation and put our own wants in the perspective of God's wisdom, we suggest whatever solution we think is best, which is not necessarily the blessing we wanted when we started to pray. Now that I think about it... "The object of prayer is not to change the will of God but to secure for ourselves and for others blessings that God is already willing to grant but that are made conditional on our asking for them" (Bible Dictionary, "Prayer"). We're not supposed to tell God what we want and try to convince Him to give it to us. We're supposed to find out what God wants and learn why that would be best for us.
The article talks about how faith in God includes faith in His timing, but I think it also includes faith in His wisdom and goodness and infinite love, even when the answer is "no." So, we brought our problem to the Lord and asked for a specific blessing, having complete faith that He can miraculously grant our request... Then He doesn't.
I recently read a story where a mother and father and the rest of their family, as well as most of their ward, were fasting and praying on behalf of their son, who was going into surgery to try to save his eye from cancer. When the eye ultimately had to be removed, the father was devastated and felt that God hadn't answered their prayers, that He wasn't listening, or didn't care. The father's faith was shaken, and so was mine. I've had times when I didn't receive help that I was sure I needed, even after sincerely praying for it. This story reminded me of those times, when I too felt angry and betrayed.
Eventually, the father calmed down, and was reminded, through sweet inspiration, that God does answer prayers, that He does love His children, and that He already is doing what He knows is best for them. The father gained the faith that he needed in order to trust his Father, and he and his family carried on through the hardship. We can do the same. We can find within ourselves the faith that we need to continue to trust the God that we trusted before, even when it seems that He's letting us down. Perhaps what He's really doing is giving us the chance to pick ourselves up.
There are a lot of lessons we can learn from Elder Cornish's experience with prayer, more than I can write about in a single blog post, but the article whose link I posted above and which will be in the June 2013 Ensign goes a long way to teach us more about prayer than what I've written here. If you get the time later, maybe you should check it out.
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