When I was younger than I am now (no one can agree or believe how old I am anyway so use whatever math you like), I would think about fantastic things as if they were potential reality.
Muppets were real beings, dragons had to be slayed, and genies were gifts for the wish-seeker if one could find one.
Ah yes, a genie. I used to think about what I would wish for if I ever found one of those lamped creatures.
Not to dangle something and then take it away, but I’m not going to share what most of those hopeful wishes were. They are quite immature, embarrassing, and a bit unrealistic.
You can categorize them with hypothetical wishes such as “I wish I had an arm like Joe Montana” or “I wish I could shoot jumpers like Michael Jordan” only more personal.
While I never found a real genie, a bottle, and so on, I still had these wishes in my heart.
Regardless of whoever was listening to my wishes, most of them from 30-ish years ago never came true.
Would I have been happier or better off if they had? Yes. Have I had to live with the fact many of my wishes never came true? Yes.
Living without a magic lamp
Every day, we have wishes, dreams, desires, goals, and other nouns that give us something to think, pray, and worry about.
We do what we can to attain some of them, but there are others that we want to just happen or just come to us — hence the desire for a genie.
(Side note, when you hear “genie,” who do you think of first? Barbara Eden or Robin Williams? But I digress.)
We could all probably list a lot of wishes that never came true, especially those wished when we were children, through no fault of our own.
Deep down, some of them have probably always stuck with us, but we learned to accept reality.
We aren’t going to magically become Kareem, MJ, Kobe, or LeBron just by wishing for it. We have to work hard, be blessed, and maybe have a little bit of luck on our side.
A genie would certainly take care of all of the parts of that equation that we can’t control.
Ah, there it is! Control! We can only control so much and we want to control what we can’t control.
When it comes to more realistic goals and wishes, should we blame ourselves if they do not come true?
Not everyone wants to be Simone Biles, Katie Ledecky, or Noah Lyles. Some people would be happy with a decent job, a spouse, and a house. Many people have had to accept and live with the fact that some of those may not happen.
We can wish, oh, we can wish. We can hope. We can strive. We can aim. We can plan. We can do. We can try. We can’t make every wish come true.
What about prayer
While not a genie (but way better!) we have the Almighty.
We have the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to share all of our wishes with.
Does every one of our petitions and intercessions that we pray for come true?
No, of course not.
Is it frustrating? Of course, it is, but that doesn’t mean we’re doing it wrong.
I’m easily annoyed when people try to give me an evangelization lesson while I’m going through prayer frustration. It’s easy for some people to say with a glow on their faces that “God’s plans are better than your plans”.
I know that, but it still hurts sometimes in the Earthy sense. I won’t do such a thing to you.
We should still pray for our wishes though. The more we keep praying for them and the more we see the results of said prayers, the more we can reflect on what we are really trying to pray for.
This is completely hypothetical, but let’s again use the example of someone praying to buy a house someday.
There are a lot of reasons why a prayer (or a wish) like that may not be answered.
Maybe there will be some unseen financial problems in the future. Maybe life changes will necessitate a move and thus not needing a house. Maybe the “dream home” isn’t on the market yet. Maybe you love apartment life more than you realize and wouldn’t know until you regretted buying a house.
Maybe look deeper. What are you wishing for when you wish (or pray) for a house?
Maybe you’re wanting a place you can customize how you see fit. You want a place where you can practice the tuba whenever you want. Maybe you want more space. Maybe these things can be accomplished in other ways.
If you have wishes that aren’t coming true, use that as an opportunity to pray to God and ask Him to help you figure out what you are really desiring and why.
Perhaps you’ll discover a new prayer to be answered.
I want to end on a happy note.
One of my “genie wishes” from when I was young was “I want a complete set of 1990 Topps football cards”.
Very recently, due to the magic and miracle of the online auction, I got said set, more than 30 years later.
Some wishes DO come true.
Thank you for reading.
I’m praying for you.