WHAT SHE WANTED WAS A HORSE. Perhaps the quintessential little-girl's wish, but it was what she desired with all her heart. And so the little girl prayed for a horse, earnestly. But no horse appeared. Later, after learning of the outcome, a friend remarked, "I'm sorry that God didn't answer your prayers." To which the little girl replied contentedly, "Oh, but God did answer my prayers. He said, 'No.'"
I love this story because it speaks to the question of what one can expect from God. Could a God who is infinite good have anything but infinite good in store for His children? Of course, that infinite good doesn't always take the form one thinks it should, and that realization opens one up to an approach to prayer that is not about outcome, or outlining a particular end result, but is an acknowledgement that one's prayers are always answered in a good—even wondrous—way. God's way.
Getting to the heart of the subject of answered prayer involves delving into the relationship between God and His offspring—an offspring created in His likeness, reflecting all His goodness, and therefore lacking nothing. This is the spiritual fact of creation—that lack or limitation has no place in a universe created and constituted by God. So why does it sometimes seem as if we don't have what we need? It is only a suggestion of materiality—the limited, limiting and, in fact, inverted version of existence—that would attempt to present this opposite view: that we must spend our lives in search of wholeness, well-being, fulfillment; that good is always slightly out of reach.
