Things aren't always what they seem

So a few months ago I came across a website that gave me a great idea about prayer. The site, which seems to have a Law of Attraction feel to it, talked about something they called "The Why Game". You are encouraged to play the game with another person, but I found that it was equally effective if you are by yourself.

The purpose of The Why Game is to give you insight into why you want what you want. Essentially it works like this (my paraphrase): You identify what it is that you want, you identify what that want looks like in real life, and then you identify what experience you desire from what you want. Once you complete that cycle, you begin the exercise again, theoretically with more insight into what you want, and go through the process as many times as needed until you get to the heart of what it is you are really seeking.

It sounded interesting, so I decided to give it a go.

It had been over a year since Ian was born, and we were still having a difficult time with insurance paying for his hospital stay. It was stressing me out big time. My plan was to go through the game for this situation, and when I got down to the nitty gritty of what I wanted, I would make that the focus of my prayer.

My first couple of cycles of The Why Game looked like this (click to enlarge):


After a few more rounds of my little experiment, I found that my fundamental desire was to have a strong and healthy family unit, so I decided to change my prayers. Instead of praying for the insurance company to do right by me, as I saw it, my prayers were focused on developing strong bonds between Dan, Ian and myself.

An interesting thing began to happen when I decided to focus on what I truly wanted and allowed God to handle how it came to be. Slowly but surely we started getting insurance statements showing they covered Ian's medical bills.

Now you can take from this little experiment what you want, but one of the interesting things I learned, is that in many cases, the thing that I am completely fixated upon when I pray, is not what I truly desire.

Go figure.