2/14/14 Prayers, God's Plan and Speeches- Oh my.

I did a simple "test" today, if you can call it that. Being the student I am, I had a speech today. Personally- speeches are not my thing- I would rather just avoid them entirely. But, what has to be done, has to be done.  As I was practicing for such dreaded speech today, I thought to myself "If there is a god, and I prayed to him to have my speech moved to Monday, would that do anything? If it was moved, what would that mean? If it wasn't, what does that imply?"

I think all of us when we were kids had those times when you heard about the possibility of snow the next day, thus the possibility that school could be canceled. However at that stage, we don't know the outcome. I remember the night before I would always pray "please god, let it snow tomorrow" and I would wake up and there would be a blanket of white outside my window. God listened! He answered my prayers, did he not? And this idea always stuck in my head, that my prayer had been answered and it had snowed. The power of god, if you will.

Yet I had always seemed to forget all the other times I prayed to God for snow- when there was reports of it to fall- and no snow fell the next morning. All the prayers that are left unanswered always seem easier to forget, or there was a reason they weren't answered. That there was a lesson involved. Like the idea that it wasn't in Gods plan for my prayer to be answered that time. It wasn't in the plan for snow to fall that day because God had some other lesson about life that needed to be learned that day. So, no snow, no prayer answered. Which is justifiable, I suppose, not all prayers are meant to be answered-it it supposed to be a sign of devotion, of faith, that no matter the outcome, putting out a prayer means I have put out what I want to happen, but ultimately God makes that decision in my "plan". But since God knows all and that ever was, he already knows the answer to my prayers, so why even listen to them? For the sign of my devotion?

 I digress, but why do I send out this signal, this prayer, as a sign of devotion/connection to God if it doesn't change his plan about what he's going to do? Even then, why can't I just take matters into my own hands?

That's a slap on the wrist- no, no, no you can't ever take matter's into your hands- it's not up to you- it's up to God. Supposedly. And if I do somehow find the will to take matters into my own hands, to decide my own actions/fate, then supposedly, some evil has suddenly appeared. Satan himself has come into my life to change whether or not it snows tomorrow! How dare he! (you would think God would have seen that in his plan but apparently the "all knowing" has a blind spot? Ironic because the human eye also has a blind spot.)

When I was having all these thoughts, an hour before my speech today, I thought it would be an interesting outcome to see in regards to my speech. If I had to go today, then I had to go. Then, obviously, God had not answered my prayer because either 1.) it wasn't in his plan, 2.) Or because I am questioning him it falls under the category of "people who pray to me I won't even bother to look at".


Jokes aside, I went in for my speech and numbers were drawn randomly to determine the speech order. 1-9 meant going today on Friday, 10-18 meant going Monday. As the basket was passed around, I couldn't help but wonder what would happen, and as the basket reached me, admittedly, a part of me did want to go on Friday, just so I could have that case that my prayer wasn't answered. But when I looked down, I saw a sheet with two dark outlines, indicating two numbers. My mind made the connection and grabbed that one. I got number 10, my speech will be on Monday.

So, was my prayer answered? Or did I make my own actions, my own plan by seeing the number I know would provide me with a later speech date? Did God make it so that number was visible so my prayer would be answered? Seems like he would have more important things to do than to help a student procrastinate a speech. If anything, if my prayer wasn't answered that would seem like a more viable lesson. Or, was seeing the number a test itself, a test of morals, a test of god, or Satan's enticement. The fruit on the tree. And the snake provoking me to chose that number was my own independent thoughts, right? Seems all very ironic because God placed and made the fruit tree there in the first place. Does that make having more work to do now on the weekend, because I chose independently or was "enticed" the punishment?

I think we chose to see what we want to see, and from those, we chose what to learn from. All I know is I chose 10, and my speech is Monday.