On Pepper and Prayer

Pepper, our cat, is very pushy. I suppose she has to be, living in our house. Otherwise there is a very real possibility that, like the houseplants, she would simply not get fed and wither away until there was no hope left. (Needless to say, we no longer have houseplants... when Philip needed one for his science project this week, I had to go buy him one at Walmart!) But we do not have to worry about Pepper withering away. She shows up promptly every morning as soon as she hears someone stirring, and begins:

Meow. Meow-meow-meow. Give me food now! NOW-Meow-NOW!

Her persistence pays off and eventually someone feeds her. As I open the Rubbermaid box that holds her food, she is so anxious to eat that she sticks her head in first, thereby impeding the progress of food to bowl. To increase the challenge, she then runs to her bowl and hovers right over it to remind me that that's where the food should go. I tell her, "Move, cat!" but she does not move, and sometimes the food ends up scattered around her bowl because she impeded a clean food drop. "Dumb cat," I think to myself.

But as I reflected on my demanding feline, I wondered if I do the same thing when I pray. I beg and plead with Him to respond to my needs and my wants... and then I promptly get in the way. Like he needs help or something. And I wonder if my "help" is sometimes responsible for the delay in an answered prayer, if my life would be so much more peaceful if I could simply learn, like David, to wait before the Lord.

"... pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests..." Eph 6:18

"I wait for you, O LORD; you will answer, O Lord my God." Ps 38:15