A little girl goes shopping with her mother and sees a doll in the window of a toy shop. She falls in love with the doll and wants it. She knows her family cannot afford to buy it but this does not stop her from praying for it. She wishes and prays every time she is reminded of the doll. After a week, on her birthday, she opens the package given by her aunt and sees inside the doll she had seen in the window! She does not make a connection and thinks to herself, 'wish I had wished for something else, as seems I would've gotten it anyway'! What is the moral of the story?
As believers we believe in the all mighty, all seeing and just! The deepest desires in our hearts, even the inarticulate ones are, in our belief, evident to Him. Our piety and our sins are in His knowledge and nothing escapes Him. This we believe! The child, in her innocence, believed so as well. But when she got what she wanted, the unseeable God seemed a distant reality-almost a non-reality. How could he hear what she had not even whispered and was only but a sigh which never escaped her lips?
We have a dear one who is very unwell and every time we are reminded we say prayers fervently, almost frantically, once the patient is discharged with a clean bill of health, we forget all about thanking Him to whom we had by now pledged half our lives in chantings of the divine name. Because we don't really believe someone we cant see could have managed this, of course it was medicines and the excellent health care made available by the advances in medical science!
Result is due in 24 hours and with dread we turn to prayer and anyone who has a sympathetic corner for us is also begged to pray for us. Again, we make the most extraordinary, zealous, almost desperate pledges in our secret conversations with the divine. Result is out and we sailed through! Let's celebrate! Of course I passed, I had worked so hard, don't you remember me staying up all night preparing for the exams?
Just a few examples to illustrate our belief-non-belief relationship. I feel that this belief provides solace. That we are being watched over by someone who has a greater power than our ordinary lives permit us to believe and the strings can be pulled to change the course of destiny in our favour (if need be). But beyond this, how much do we really believe?
We have a dear one who is very unwell and every time we are reminded we say prayers fervently, almost frantically, once the patient is discharged with a clean bill of health, we forget all about thanking Him to whom we had by now pledged half our lives in chantings of the divine name. Because we don't really believe someone we cant see could have managed this, of course it was medicines and the excellent health care made available by the advances in medical science!
Result is due in 24 hours and with dread we turn to prayer and anyone who has a sympathetic corner for us is also begged to pray for us. Again, we make the most extraordinary, zealous, almost desperate pledges in our secret conversations with the divine. Result is out and we sailed through! Let's celebrate! Of course I passed, I had worked so hard, don't you remember me staying up all night preparing for the exams?
Just a few examples to illustrate our belief-non-belief relationship. I feel that this belief provides solace. That we are being watched over by someone who has a greater power than our ordinary lives permit us to believe and the strings can be pulled to change the course of destiny in our favour (if need be). But beyond this, how much do we really believe?
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