Why You Should Ask the Divine for What You Want

A quick note before we start — I use “G-d” in my writing to name the divine, but I don’t necessarily subscribe to the man-in-the-sky model of relating to G-d. Jewish mysticism has greatly influenced my understanding of G-d as The One — feminine and masculine, king and commoner, warrior and pacifist — One in the garments of many. In any place where I have written “G-d,” you could appropriately substitute “the divine” or “the universe” and my meaning would be more or less preserved. Plenty of spiritual people and even some religious people don’t respond well to G-d language, and if that’s you, I encourage you to substitute if useful.

There is an idea among theologically literate people that praying to G-d to ask for what you want in life indicates spiritual immaturity. “G-d is not a divine Santa Claus capable of wish fulfillment,” the spiritually savvy insist. Common messaging in religious circles across traditions and denominations seems to be that prayer should be selfless, about alignment with divine will, and if one is to request anything of G-d it should be on behalf of the suffering world and its suffering people. But what you, personally, happen to want? Those things that you don’t even strictly need to survive, but just… want? Yea, leave that out. To include those things would be selfish, and G-d doesn’t like selfishness.

Unfortunately, this messaging overlooks a few critical points, both about human beings and about the divine. First and importantly — to be human is to desire. We need some things. We want a lot of things. Not all of them are good, though most of them I would argue, are not inherently bad either. To want is natural, and it isn’t changing. We can, through meditation and intentional thought and (of course) prayer, change the content of what we want, shift the desires of our heart to, for example, whatever is good and holy, if we are so inclined. But we still want.

If we do not feel free and emboldened to take our desires, all of them, no matter how seemingly silly or self-involved, to G-d, then we will inevitably take them to other places, where they have more potential to do harm in our lives and in the world.

We might try to minimize or diminish what we want, or perhaps sloppily short-circuit our desires in a reactive attempt to redirect to…

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