Stewardship of Miracles

Working on my prayer life again.  Focused mostly on end-of-day thank yous, pre-meal graces and after-the-school-bus-pick-up take care of hers.  Haven't really started back in with the selfish-y prayers yet.  It's just a matter of time, though.  Ok, ok, I've talked to God about 'me' things, but I haven't outright asked Him for anything.  Well, not anything big.  Yikes.

Today on the way home from work I was stuck sitting in traffic and started thinking (always questionable) about miracles and prayers in general.  Sort of looking for what they have in common, what's different; why they often don't seem to be answered.

My general hypothesis (if my pastor is reading this - please avert your eyes), is that maybe answered prayers, or things we may consider to be miracles, can begin only when human intervention is exhausted.  Just speaking for myself, and based on a brief review of some of the things I've asked most frequently for God to perform for me , there is probably only a small portion of those requests for a miracle that is something that would actually only occur by divine intervention. 

If I break down a petition to its individual components, all but perhaps the very last bit could probably be accomplished, for all intents and purposes, without God - mostly by myself, but sometimes by or through others.  In retrospect, there's a bunch of things I've asked for that really don't need His intercession at all - so in essence, I've been praying for short-cuts; for God to support my sloth.  He's not going to clean my house, or hand me a social life, or put my script in another's head, or pay my bills.  I really need to be more discerning and thoughtful in what I think I need.  Looks I have some work to do.

No wonder my answered prayer jar is still empty. 

The other bottom line is this - if we can be brave enough to share our prayers for the everyday miracles, we should be able to help each other get closer to their fulfillment.