My encounter with Santa taught me a lot about prayer
“What do you want for Christmas?”
Growing up, I hated that question. It wasn’t for any lack of desires or preferences, I just didn’t want to have a wish list. Not for Christmas and not for my birthday. You see, as soon as you admit that you want something, it leaves your hands. From there, it could be misheard, ignored, or questioned.
Take Santa for example. The man is universally renowned for keeping track of every boy and girl’s Christmas wish. But when I met Santa at 6 years old, that was not exactly my experience.
I’d agonized over what to ask Santa for Christmas, discussing my proposal with my mom at length. I settled on something I figured he could acquire easily. So I asked him for a pink robe.
But instead of a robe, I got a globe. But why?
I had done everything I could to make my Christmas wish as easy for Santa as possible — that is except for one thing. I had failed to speak up when my grandma asked me what I wanted from Santa the week before. In my mind, a robe of any color was never in the cards. So I kept quiet. I said nothing.
That day, I was wrongly convinced that if you ask for something you might not get it. I was so disappointed.
I don’t know about you, but I have the same tendencies approaching God in prayer that I had back then approaching Santa. I find myself constantly trying to make things easier for God, attempting to word things in a more reasonable sounding way, and mumbling the things that are maybe more of a personal desire than a need. And if I’m really honest, sometimes I’d rather just not ask in the first place.
Truth is, there’s something vulnerable about admitting what you want. It reveals what your heart values, which might be very embarrassing. But what happens when we are reticent to tell God what we want? We’ve all been warned not to approach God's throne as though it were a cosmic vending machine, but what if there’s an equal and opposite malady in prayer?
I listened to a lot of health and wealth messages growing up. At first, I believed every bit of it. But after some time I began to notice a distorted theology of suffering. It made the struggles I watched my friends and family face feel somehow more desperate, as though I could fix and heal if I could just pray the “right way.” I despised the message that faith could power my prayers. Sure, maybe that worked in stories and documentaries, but for me? Time and time again I watched outcomes unfold that I had labored to avoid with all the “faith” I could muster.
At my Christian school, I heard a counter message: God isn’t Santa or some magic eight ball and prayers shouldn’t look like shopping lists.
But I received that truth in a warped way: Our desires are corrupt — who are we to ask anything of God? God has given us Himself — so isn’t it ungrateful of us to ask for anything more?
I'm describing the evil twin of the prosperity gospel — a gospel of scarcity and pragmatism. Where the one “gospel” twists faith to build your own kingdom, the other proffers that same control by omitting, economizing, or triaging your desires in prayer. I quickly found pride and self-righteousness in my prayers, praying only for needs and “noble requests.” Surely, God would honor my frugality, right? If I just ask for the right reasons, my desires will come true.
Here’s where Christmas slams me in the face every year. God is not thrifty at all. On the first Christmas, our needy, sinful state was met with God’s extravagance in the person that false gospels overlook: Jesus.
Sure, health and wealth preachers use Jesus’ name a lot, but that’s neither here nor there. The prosperity gospel has relational tunnel vision. We all know that. But while health and wealth messages look past the baby in a manger, seeking to harness power for prosperity, gospels of false piety and practicality are too miserly to even look at Jesus. But the true Gospel hopes in Jesus above everything — ourselves, our sin, and our desires. True supplication looks to Jesus more than the outcome and lets every unmet desire meet His eyes. We must tell Jesus all of what’s on our hearts. It’s not greedy at all. It’s humble.
Jesus is the joy of every longing heart. We must tell Jesus what we want, not so He can know, but so we can know Him better. On the cross, Jesus knew the sheer heaviness of every sinful disorder, discontentment, and desire that would ever creep around in our hearts. He knows the ache of every good desire unmet and the destruction of every wrong desire that has come to fruition. Jesus knows the weight of it all. When we go to Him, we go to the source of comfort and hope that came down to earth 2,000 years ago.
So, I have to ask — is there anything you’re afraid to pray for? Are there ways you find yourself making budget cuts to your prayers thinking that the less you ask, the more likely God is to give? Do you only ask for things you think you deserve? Do you admit what you want, but not how much you want it now? Is there a single matter of your heart that you should hide from Jesus?
Dear Christian, this Christmas, ask away. Admit even the silly things to God. Take the hardest things — even those things that seem entirely impossible and lay them at the foot of His throne. He is able, He never mishears, and He will always give us the very best. From the first Christmas to the last one, God gives His children only good gifts.
Julia Baer is a writer who lives and works in Washington D.C. She grew up in Chicago and made her way to Washington D.C. after studying philosophy with French and Wheaton College. She misses the pizza but not the cold.
