showing off to the neighbours. Still less would anyone give a man the priceless treasure of another person, when all he asked for was a conventional cypher.
If a man really wants God to give him something he must ask something like this:-
“Oh Lord God hear me! You know that I love you, and would not do anything deliberately to injure the relationship between Thee and me. Lord, you know I want to ask for this thing; but that is not enough, because I care for what you want. And I know that in the end it would give me no satisfaction to be able to make requests which were not in accordance with your will. Teach me the truth! Tell me plainly what your will is, in language I can understand; and do not let me indulge in the fantasy of thinking that I know your will, when in fact I do not. Then when I know your will, give me grace to ask and demand my prayer be granted”.
God might reply as follows:-
“My love! Of course, I will never let you ask for things, that would destroy the trust between thee and me. You have no need to fear that you will not know my will, because you only have to ask, and I will tell you. How should our love ever survive, if you were not able to ask for things in accordance with my will?”
This prayer and answer are not perhaps in accordance with the best theology; but you cannot build theology upon a living relationship, because the relationship changes, and theology would have to be changing every moment too, to keep in step. The best thing a person can do, when he thinks he has learned how to pray, is to chuck any books on theology into the waste-paper basket. If a person's belief is true, then God will provide him with a much…