Pray Strategically

Lord,
I ask that you take away
my daughter’s pain,
but I realize
if you do that
then the doctors, nurses,
insurance adjusters and
pharmacists might be
negatively affected
so I won’t ask for that.

Lord,
please help my mother
in her elderly loneliness,
even though
if she were healed
then she wouldn’t buy
so many unnecessary things
from the Home Shopping channel
and perhaps that would make
all the vendors, shippers,
and Federal express workers
unnecessary too,
so I won’t ask for that.

Lord,
I ask that you find homes
for all these homeless,
help them find their
place in this world,
but if I do,
it might displace
the social services industry
and throw their lives into
chaos,
so I won’t ask for that.

Lord,
would you help
the little children born
with AIDS and cancer
and give them a future
even though
it could completely
upend the charities
designed to help them
and create more
unintended consequences?

Can I ask for that?
Can I ask for anything?

Lord,
can you teach me
how to pray strategically,
so that my requests
are big enough
to make a difference,
yet are small enough
to keep the unintended
collateral damage
to a minimum?

Until then
I will pray
as I always have,

with thankful
ambiguity.