What You Really Really Want

For couple a weeks the pain from my teeth had been increasing, and I began to wonder about the competency of my dentist...


In my typical fashion I put it off as long as I could, but eventually the pain became agonizing and I couldn't take it anymore...I made the dreaded appointment.

I hate going to the dentist, it is offensive and painful to every sensory perception involved, and the memory lingers long afterward.

It's probably my own fault for delaying it until I need it and creating the worst possible scenario for the dentist to then try to make the best of. I'm a total baby, I know it. I get nauseous at the sights, sounds and smells of anything medical, factor in that painkillers usually have a very minimal and short term effect on me and you have the worst patient in the world, I'm sure.

I just couldn't understand what in the world was happening with me because only a few weeks prior I seen the dentist and been released with a clean bill of health. Every X-Ray good, every cavity filled, every tooth then cleaned and polished, and yet here I was.

You can imagine my dentist's surprise to see me as he walked in.

He asked me what was going on telling me what I already knew about my clean bill of dental health.

I told him, in retrospect too frankly, that he must have missed something somewhere, because my teeth were now killing me and I was ready for what ever root canal or drilling pain needed to happen to get this taken care of.

He then asked me the next logical question, "which tooth was hurting me?"....

Me: "Tooth?" I replied, "Try TEETH!"

Him: "What do you mean teeth? Which teeth?"

Me: "The upper ones"

Him: "Which upper ones?"

Me: "ALL the upper ones! That's why I'm here. Just do what you've got to I can't take this anymore."

Him) "Well, this is going to seem a little weird, but bear with me here..."

He then proceeded to take that little light thing, with the magnifying lens, and took a gander up my nose.

Him: "Well, it's exactly as I thought."

Me: "What's that?"

Him: "You have a sinus infection and they're pushing down on your teeth. There's actually nothing wrong with your teeth at all. How long have they been hurting you? It looks pretty bad in there."

Me: "Too long to find out this is all it was. Sorry."

He gave me a script for an antibiotic that cleared it up pretty quickly.

I felt like an idiot....

So what's the point?

Well apply this scenario to our approach to prayer and our judgement on what it is we think God may or may not be doing.

How often times we find fault with God for not giving us what it is we think we need, what we ask for.

I was glad that my dentist had relied on his own greater knowledge rather than doing what I had asked for, expected and would have welcomed to relieve my situation.

So how much better off would we be if we just relied on God's greater understanding of our situations and judgement in giving us what we need instead of what we ask for....

d(-_-)b