This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. – 1 John 5:14

Today’s Scripture Reading (March 13, 2015): 1 John 5

A heartwarming story emerged out of trade deadline day 2015 in the National Hockey League (who knew that the trade deadline could be heartwarming.) Apparently Jordan Leopold’s daughter Jordyn, age 11, wrote a letter to the management of the Minnesota Wild. The letter was to request that the Wild trade for her dad. According to the letter, Jordyn and her mom and siblings are presently living in Minnesota, and the letter informs the Wild management that they are lonely without Dad, and the hope of this 11 year old child is that somehow the Minnesota Wild would be able to make a trade to bring Dad home to Minnesota and reunite the family. The letter says “We are living in Minnesota now and I am lost without my dad and so is my mom, my 2 sisters and my brother.” What is maybe amazing about the story is that with all the fan mail a professional hockey team receives, that the letter of this little girl actually reached management. And so on trade deadline day 2015, Jordan Leopold was traded from Columbus to Minnesota. Both teams had apparently read the letter as Columbus Blue Jacket General Manager Jarmo Kekalainen tweeted after the trade that “it isn’t always about business.” Columbus and Minnesota joined to become Santa Claus to a little girl at the beginning of March, and as a result Dad was on his way home. There is still something amazing about these two teams, both multi-million dollar businesses, even hearing about the letter, let alone complying to the wishes of this little girl. It is unexpected. (And part of me wonders if Jordan and his wife Jamie even knew what their daughter was doing, and whether they would have discouraged her from writing the letter if they had known what was in her heart believing that she was only setting herself up for failure.)

As John begins the closing remarks to his letter, he wants to remind his readers that God hears them when they pray. Our prayers do not get lost in some kind of supernatural paper shuffle, they arrive at their intended destination to be deal with by the creator of the world. And because God is willing to listen, we can have confidence in approaching him. It is not that God will be able to give us everything that we ask, but often it is enough just for us to know that we have been heard. Sometimes, because we don’t understand the situation, we ask for wrong things. But God gets that – and he hears us anyway.

And maybe this is what Jesus meant when he told us that we needed to become like little children if we were ever going to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. A child does not understand the situations of the adult, and I am sure the Jordyn does not understand what it takes to be a General Manager in the NHL, but in innocence she asked anyways, and she was heard and the NHL was able to respond. In the same way, when we come in innocence before the throne of God, John says that we are heard and that God will also respond – and sometimes like with the Minnesota and Columbus hockey teams, God responds in a very unexpected way.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 2 John and 3 John