“I Want, I Want, I Want!”

Have you ever found yourself praying and receiving answers, then forgetting? What does God want us to learn about asking and receiving?

My son came up to me and said, “I WANT MY MAP!” This simple piece of paper he got out of a Thomas the Tank Engine package means relatively nothing to me, but everything to him. As he began to cry, I told him to stand in the corner until he was finished. When he finished, I calmly tried to adjust the mood with instruction on the appropriate way to ask.

For many parents, correcting rude or inappropriate behavior in our children is a regular part of parenting. Sometimes we notice an ungrateful or demanding tone before they open their mouth. Sometimes we wonder, “Where did he get that from?”

Prayers answered and forgotten

How many of us have prayed for something and yet, when we received it, have grown ungrateful over time? More than four years ago, I was at a dead-end job. We had just come into the Church of God, my wife was pregnant, we were living at my father’s house, and we were unsure how we were going to provide for our baby.

I pleaded with God for a job with health-care benefits and a certain salary. Amazingly, I received. But I worked under the most obscene woman I could imagine and struggled to maintain a sense of gratitude for the job. After our son was born prematurely and had to spend three months in the neonatal intensive care unit, we found ourselves struggling financially. By God’s merciful hand, I kept my job and witnessed amazing changes in the workplace.

In time, I pleaded with God for release from that woman and for a better salary. Soon I had her job and the salary I prayed for. I finally finished my associate’s degree, which I had started eight years earlier. God had seen me through the toughest parts of my life and blessed us with an apartment in my grandmother’s basement.

Although things changed for the better at the workplace, I lost sight of the blessings I had. As a supervisor, I struggled to maintain healthy relationships. My son kept getting sick, and I grew very ungrateful of my two-year degree. I felt I never had enough money, my degree was inadequate, and my job was meaningless. I began slacking off and expressing my feelings about management. I was making mistakes and was unable to maintain my composure. I complained to God how I wanted a better job and salary.

God is amazing and merciful. I was demoted but allowed to keep my salary. A girl I had trained and spoke highly of became my supervisor. For the last two years, my pride, my heart and my desires have been revealed and shaken. My employer is always hiring new people and making changes, yet no matter how hard I try to make myself noticed, I remain a lowly clerk.

I often still fall back into that ungrateful feeling, only to be refreshed by God’s Word. It is getting easier to refresh my mind, but it is still very hard to avoid that covetousness.

Refreshing my mind

What helps me remember? Here are some scriptures that help me:

• “He who walks with integrity walks securely, but he who perverts his ways will become known” (Proverbs 10:9).
• “Better is the one who is slighted but has a servant, than he who honors himself but lacks bread” (Proverbs 12:9). While I don’t lack anything I need, I should remember not to think of myself as deserving of better.
• “Poverty and shame will come to him who disdains correction, but he who regards a rebuke will be honored” (Proverbs 13:18).
• James reminds us, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures” (James 4:3).
• And Paul said, “For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do” (Romans 7:15).

Recently I have realized why I am not changing as fast as I would like in this area. I asked myself, what do I hate more—my position or the sin of unthankfulness I am committing? Although I hate both, I must hate the sin and be grateful I have a job in this troubled economy.

Learning from my son

My son is usually very polite. He says please and thank you for almost everything, even when he is in pain. Just ask his nurses and doctors. What is amazing is that although he gets bent out of shape over a piece of paper, he is willing to let it go after he talks to his father and receives a hug from him.

That is the best “position” I could ask for, right next to my son, on my knees talking to our Father.

John Columbo, 28, is married and has two small children. He attends the Church of God, a Worldwide Association, in Allentown, Pennsylvania.