On Black Friday 2020, I impulsively booked airline tickets to Hawaii. The deal was too good. And the fact that we’d canceled two of our 2020 family vacations had left enough wiggle room in the travel budget that a discounted Hawaii trip became an actual possibility.
Two days later I began researching Hawaii travel restrictions and the buyer’s remorse started to set in.
The idea of scheduling 7 COVID tests within 72 hours of our departing flight appeared daunting. But at that point the tickets were non-refundable so we went with it.
Five months and a whole lot of research later, the anxiety really kicked in though. I used the last few days as practice runs on scheduling our COVID tests. And it didn’t make me feel any more settled.
Each time I logged on to the website, it said there were no appointments available. At every single location within a hundred miles. I began wondering if the thousands of dollars we’d dropped on this trip already would go down the tubes and into the vault of lost opportunities due to the pandemic.
It would serve me right for jumping the gun in getting outta town, right?
Wrong.
I said a silent prayer that all would not be lost. It felt a little silly, asking Heavenly Father to make a trip to Hawaii possible. Kind of like the little kid who prays for a brand new bike, you know?
And yet, I’ve grown to understand a few things in my many years of believing in a higher power. First, that he is a parent. And while any good parent teaches his/her children what is best for them, that same parent occasionally gives those children what THEY want, good or bad, right or wrong.
I can remember a conversation I had a few years ago with a friend whose daughter was planning her wedding. She’d pretty much exhausted her allocated budget but decided somewhat last-minute that hair extensions were an absolute must.
This was completely antithetical to everything my friend had modeled for her dear daughter. She was miffed that something that trivial was so high on the priority list for her daughter that it was worth going over budget.
She asked me for advice. I replied-you and I are cut from the same cloth when it comes to this sort of thing. I think hair extensions are stupid, YOU think hair extensions are stupid. But (insert daughter’s name) really wants them. Maybe now is not the time for a teaching moment but simply an opportunity for you to show your love for her.
She got the hair extensions.
Sometimes God gives us what we want simply because we want it. In all realism, sometimes granting that wish ends in disaster, but that can be a lesson too, right?
And secondly, sometimes God gives us what we want because we thought to ask Him for it and he wants to reward our faith.
Isn’t it very telling that when something isn’t quite going as hoped for that we would humble ourselves enough to ask God for help? It says so much about our relationship with him when we go to him in our need. Even if that need appears trivial, like a trip to Hawaii.
And thirdly, I think God gives us what we want when he knows we would be okay with him NOT giving it to us. He knows our hearts. He knows that I realize Hawaii is not that important in the grand scheme of things. He knows that despite being super bummed about the trip falling through that I would not curse him and die over it.
The point is, God is not some magical genie in the sky who grants our wishes without reservation. More often than not, he gives us what is best rather than what we want. But it is nice to know that as any parent does, He often supports us in our desires simply because he loves us.
