A monk planted an olive tree and prayed God: Dear Lord, send me rain. And the Lord sent rain upon the earth.
The tree was full of moisture and the monk kept praying: And now, Dear Lord, I ask you to send a lot of sunshine for my tree needs warmth.
And the Lord sent sunshine. The tree grew.
The monk kept praying for this: “Dear Lord, give me frost for the roots and branches to become stronger”. The Lord sent frost, and the tree died.
The monk was very upset. He told his story to another monk in order to share his sorrow. And the monk told him: “I also have an olive tree. Look over there.” His tree was a robust one. However, I prayed to God to give me other things.
I told God that he is the Creator of this tree and that he knows better than I do what the tree needed to grow naturally. I just asked God to take care of it. This lesson is intertemporal!
We should only ask in our prayer our salvation, and the salvation our fellow human beings.
The Lord knows what we need, and what is of use to us. Let us trust Him and He will give us what our heart and our benefit needs.
*The article was originally published in Greek in ikivotos.gr