It was a long long time before anyone spoke.
Out of the corner of his eye Phouchg could see the sea of tense expectant faces down in the square outside.
"We're going to get lynched, aren't we?" he whispered.
"It was a tough assignment," said Deep Thought mildly.
Sometimes life doesn't always turn out the way you want or expect. After seven and a half million years, Phouchg has been given the answer to the Big Question by the stupendous super computer Deep Thought. That answer is 42. Hardly mind-blowing or mind-expanding.
Like I said, life has a way of throwing you curve balls. Sort of like prayer. People pray to God for a lot of things. Cure my mother of cancer. Let me win the lottery. Help me to pay my bills. Make my wife's mental illness go away. The list goes on and on, a different need for every person on the planet.
In our society of instant gratification, we expect God to answer those prayers immediately, and exactly the way we want them answered. In essence, most people, in their prayer lives, play God. They think they know what's best, and they tell God exactly what He should do.
That's a control thing. I'm guilty of it frequently. I write a script for my life, and I expect everybody to follow that script. When someone doesn't follow that script, I get angry, frustrated, afraid. Of course, nobody knows the lines and stage directions in the script I've written.
When I tell my son that it's time for bed, his lines should be: "Yes, father. Thank you for reminding me." And his stage direction should be: Gets up from chair, goes to bathroom, brushes his teeth, then immediately crosses to bed and falls asleep.
The answer I received tonight: "Just a second!" The actual stage directions tonight: Gets up from his chair after another ten minutes, goes directly to bed without brushing his teeth, and then screams at the top of his lungs "Get your butt in here!!!"
People rarely follow my script. That's because they don't know anything about my script. I'm playing God, just like when I tell God how to answer my prayers. God simply doesn't work that way. He's in control, and I have to understand and accept that. Prayers always get answered, but not always in the time-frame or way I expect/demand.
It's exhausting playing God, because I set myself up for constant frustration. I can barely handle it some days. No wonder God is continually disappointed in the human race in the Bible. We break His heart on a daily basis.
Saint Marty needs to stop casting himself as God because God always reminds Saint Marty that he's not in charge.
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