jump God, jump!

it's funny (and sad, to be honest) how often i find myself quietly hoping and praying for something from God and expecting it to miraculously come my way with no will or action on my part. it's like praying to run into someone at Starbuck's who's really cool and yet, never going into Starbuck's to begin with. and then, on top of this, i find myself getting angry at God asking, "why didn't you let me run into any cool people at Starbuck's?"

obviously, this is not what i'm asking for and i hope you catch my very poor analogy on the subject of what i'm really talking about. it's like we hold these very very unreasonable expectations over God's head and we say, "come on God...just do it (i.e., "jump God, jump!")!!!" and we wholeheartedly expect He should. like we deserve it or something. it reminds me of a taylor philosophy professor and how he recalled always praying that he wouldn't run out of gas when he was getting very low and in the middle of nowhere. he couldn't believe he, of all rational people, would expect God to produce some magic extra gas just b/c he willfully allowed it to get that low in the first place. i'm all for faith, believe me...but it seems sometimes, i can get way to wrapped up in the extraordinary and forget that much of what i do depends on what i choose to do. i know i know, it's called free will...but isn't it funny how a lot of the time we don't want the free will to choose but want someone else to decide for us so we can still complain about how crappy and bad and horrible the circumstances in our lives really are?