An entry from Paul Thigpen’s A Year With the Saints: Daily Meditations with the Holy Ones of God.
We must understand that even though God does not always give us what we want, he gives us what we need for our salvation. Suppose you ask your physician for something that would be harmful, and he knows it would be harmful. What should he do?
Let’s say that you ask for a cup of cold water. If it would do you good, and he gives it to you right away, then surely you can’t say that he hasn’t heard you. On the other hand, if it would do you harm, and so he doesn’t give it to you, you still can’t say that he hasn’t heard you, just because he contradicted your will. Instead, he’s heard you according to what your health requires.
So learn to pray to God in such a way that you’re trusting him as your Physician to do what he knows is best. Confess to him the disease, and let him choose the remedy. Then hold tight to love, for what he does will cut and sting you.
You may cry out, and your cries may not stop the cutting, the burning, and the pain. Yet he knows how deep the festering flesh lies. While you want him to take his hands off you, in his treatment he must consider not your cries, but the extent of the infection. He knows how far he must go. He’s not listening to you according to what you want, but according to what will heal you.
— St. Augustine, Sixth Homily on 1 John, 8
Reading this I realized how much I am like that person who goes to WebMD before going to the Doctor’s office. Ready to tell the doctor what the problem is and what to proscribe to me. Not a lot of listening to the Divine Physician is involved.
