TICKY TACKY

Someone told me a prayer diary was a good idea, so I started one. They said it would build up my faith. So far, so bad.

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I had a white box that I wanted BLUE. I took it into the Lord, put it on the table in front of him and prayed, “Lord, please change my box to blue”. When I opened my eyes there it was, totally transformed, a YELLOW box!

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l’m not easily discouraged so when, a few days later, I needed a RED box, I took another white box into him and prayed hard for red. This time when I opened my eyes expecting God to have got it right this time, NOTHING had happened at all, not even a tinge of pink!

Well I thought it must be my fault, perhaps the prayer was too short or not eloquent enough. So I tried again and put some long words in this time like vermilion and crimson and scarlet. Still nothing happened. I was about to give up when suddenly the box changed. I rubbed my eyes to make sure and yes it was definitely GREEN.

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It was about now that doubts started to creep in. Was God colour-blind? Was this his idea of a joke? Was he just not really listening? Then of course there were all those non-Christian friends I’d been hoping to win for the Lord. I can imagine them now, all sat in a circle laughing, with a green box in the middle.

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But then I began to wonder if it could still be my fault? Perhaps I wasn’t a good enough person to have prayers answered. Then I thought “I know! I’ll repent of everything. Particularly all those things that God knows I’ve done that I don’t! Maybe that will do the trick!”

So there I was, repentant, hopeful and doubtful, all at the same time; with another white box I needed YELLOW. It was when that box changed to BLUE that I finally lost my temper.I threw the remaining one through the door and screamed,“I wanted this one GREEN, I suppose you’ll turn it into purple”. Just as it hit the floor it changed to RED.

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I’m going to take my prayer diary round to the ‘someone’ who suggested it and tell them what I think of their good idea. Build up my faith, huh, mine’s below foundation level. It’s down in black and white. I asked God for a blue box, a red box, a yellow one and a green. What did I get? A yellow box, a green box, a blue one and a red one. It just goes to prove that prayer doesn’t work.

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Hey, wait a minute. I’ve just realised something. I got all the colours I wanted, yellow, green, blue and red.                                                                                                        God answered every prayer, just not in the way I expected.