The problem with first world problems

A few days ago I wrote about my seeming invisibility to God.  This post stemmed from that one.  As you can see, prayers and doubt in God's desire to answer them are a reoccurring theme right now...

I’m having a hard time praying lately.  Every prayer I bring to God carries with it this little phrase “First World Problem.”

When I first heard the phrase first world problem I loved it.  I liked using it sarcastically, cheekily.  I like the perspective it gave me, particularly in my whiney-er moments.  Ug, I had to leave a cart full of groceries at the check out at Target and drive all the way home and back (with two kids!) because I forgot my wallet!  #FirstWorldProblems man, #FirstWorldProblems. 

Over time, however, that phrase has turned and banged around my psyche like sneakers in the dryer.  It’s become a voice all of it’s own, a voice that is condescending and sneering, angry and condemning.  This voice first inserted itself in my prayers and a dialogue began.

Please, Lord, please let this showing be the one.  Let these people be the buyers.

FIRST WORLD PROBLEM.  Do you really think God cares all that much if you sell your house?  You should be thankful you have a house at all!  That guy standing there on the expressway begging for change would probably love your house.  Don’t you know there are starving kids in Africa?

And then, slowly but surely this voice, the First World Problems voice, became the voice of God and I imagined He was the one sneering and angry about my requests.  It spiraled downward and eventually God became an angry god, furious with me, his whiney petulant child.  Haven’t I given you enough already?  Do I really need to help you with another problem?  Can’t you just leave me alone already?  I have other more important things to do. 

Little by little, day-by-day I find myself going to God less and less, feeling more and more undeserving of his provision.  I rationalize that in the grand scheme of things I have so much.  God has given me so much.  And I really don’t have any right to expect Him to give me any more.

It’s as though I’ve come to believe that the blessings of God are finite, a limited currency doled out to each person and I wasted all mine on iPads and new clothes and dinners out.  Not only that, but since God has given me so much, since I am so blessed I really should be able to do things on my own.  I am not worthy of depending on God.  If I can’t make it work with all that he’s given me I’m a pretty worthless disaster.

And so I stop praying. When it comes down to it, all my prayers, all the problems I want to bring before God are really just first world problems. 

There is danger in this phrase, this #firstworldproblem.  It creates a spirit of cynicism in me.  Cynicism about God and His love for me.  Cynicism about my place as a daughter of Christ.  I'm drowning in this cynicism.  Because of this phrase I've cast myself as the spoiled daughter, the one who has everything and still wants more, even though her other siblings are struggling with a lot less.  But is that really my role?  Is this really the part I am playing with God?  Are my needs and fears and anxieties no less real because they are the needs and fears and anxieties of a first world person?

When I think about my kids, my two sweet precious pals, would I deny them help because they already used up their requests for the day?  Sorry Monster, I know you want that toy up on the high shelf, but you have a thousand other toys down here.  First World Problem man.  Uh, listen Toots I’ve already changed 5 poopy diapers today.  That’s my quota.  You’ll have to wait until tomorrow for a clean one.  I know you want another glass of milk, but you know what, kids are dying in Africa because they don’t have any milk.  Deal with it.  GOSH!  Are you seriously asking me to read you ANOTHER book?!  How can you be so selfish?!  Don’t you know there are kids who can’t read any books?

I would never do this to my children.  Why do I expect God to do it to me?

Perspective is good, and for some of us, those prone to think a chipped nail is the end of the world, the idea of first world problems is probably a good thing.  I need the reminder when I'm struggling with the seatbelt in my daughter's car seat cursing the day I was born into this horrible lot in life.  I need the reminder that there is a lot worse out there than a few days where everything is not sunny all the time always.

But for those of us prone to internalize our blessings with a guilty conscience for those who have not also received them, for those of us trying to deny dependence on God because we don’t think we deserve to lean on Him, there is danger in this phrase.  God’s blessings are not limited.  They don’t run out because you wasted all your coins on cheaper, lesser blessings.  God is not limited to the third world as much as he’s not limited to the first.  He wants all his children to come to Him, to depend on Him, to pray with open, honest hearts to Him regardless of whether those prayers include a desperate need for food for the table, or the sale of a perfectly good home.