Surprise! Surprise!

"Surprise! Surprise!"That's what Gomer Pyle would say as an Army recruit when something unexpected seemed suddenly to appear. Usually, his surprises were happy ones.  If Gomer Pyle reruns play in your time zone or cable channel, watch them as.they represent a time of innocence long since missing from today's t.v. shows, movies,  or sitcoms. So why am I truly surprised when God answers prayer? It's not as if He never answers them.  In fact, He responds affirmatively more often than He says "No" or "Not now." He always knows what's best for His children.

However, if a supplication seems to be taking too long, I start speculating as if I've prayed the prayer to me, not God.  In fact, how often have I prayed to myself (or some other idol) but not to God? I can remember years of making fervent yet self-serving, prayers only to catch myself two minutes later trying to figure out solutions. Had I even waited 120 seconds for His answer?  Bargaining. Empty Promises Backed by Fear. Unbelief. Desperation. Do I think answered prayers have something to do with sincerity or intensity?

Does answered prayer depend on whether the request is made by the requestor who is a "Baby Christian," or by a seasoned intercessor?  If a card-carrying prayer-warrior joins a chorus of Pray-ers and increases its intensity with a fervency that explodes in praise, will He answer quicker? If all resources and possibilities have been exhausted and it's the "Eleventh Hour," and so much depends on the answer (success or failure?), is that how to make prayer work?

My Mom and her Mother Board contemporaries used to warn us to "stay prayed up," even when they'd sing, "He's an on-time God, yes He is!" Confusing? Contradictory? Unsettling? Perplexing?  Perhaps. It boils down to relationship.  God created us for relationship, for fellowship. Is God real to me, or is He little more than an Old Testament- type Gandolfo breathing fire from the sky? Who is this God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? And even if I think I know Him esoterically, how does He measure up to a Computer-Age God?

You say He's the same yesterday, today, and forever? You say He's always communicating with me in myriad forms? How does that work? How can I know? Because He promises, "Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things you have not known" (Jeremiah 33:3)?  Is that how I can see Him as the "For Real, Supreme Being who loves, cares, protects and answers prayers? Is He who I can call upon in an emergency, or any time, really, where I don't have to build up points for access? And I have only to believe? "...Jesus looked at them and said, ""With man it is impossible, but not with God.  For all things are possible with God" (Mark 10:27). Amen.