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Thus, there are prayers God won't or can't answer, for our own good.

We often say selfish prayers without thinking much about them. We pray for parking spaces when we're running late, never considering that ten other people, as late as we are, might be praying, too, for the two remaining spaces available in the parking garage. We pray for victories in elections, forgetting that victory for one party means defeat for another party that might be just as prayerful as we are. We pray for success in business, though increased sales in our business might undermine competitors down the street who are praying for the same thing and need success more than we do. Not that these prayers are necessarily wrong, but we should remember that answers to our prayers might be at someone else's expense.

When my oldest son, David, was in elementary school, he played on a soccer team that dominated the city league. However, during the final city tournament, they had to square off against a team that had beaten them badly only a few weeks before. Both teams played well. At the end of regulation play, the score was tied 2 to 2. So they had to go into a shootout, where five players from each team shoot against the opposing goalkeeper from twelve yards out. Whichever team scores the most goals in the shootout wins the match.

The parents on our side turned the match into something akin to a medieval crusade, complete with all the spiritual overtones. I heard several parents mutter, "Please, Lord, let our boys win." One woman said, "God, if they win, I will believe in you again." Not to be outdone, I-a seasoned Christian, an ordained minister, an author of books on theology, a professor with a Ph.D.-joined this chorus and even conjured up several reasons why God should answer our prayers.

Our team won when our goalkeeper blocked the last shot. The kids went wild, leaping into the air and piling on top of each other. It looked like a scene from a Disney movie. One parent said, "I believe there's a God again." Being more modest and pious, I simply uttered a prayer of thanksgiving under my breath.

We had no way of knowing, of course, what was happening on the other side of the field. I learned more about the other team only recently, some five years later, when I met a Christian parent from the opposing side. In the course of our conversation she described a tournament championship in which her son had played years earlier. Their team "needed" that victory, she said, to add the finishing touches to the only winning season they had ever had. But they lost-"in a shootout and on the last shot." Only then did I realize that she was talking about our championship match.

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