Figgy Pudding

Every year for six weeks, listening to Christmas song after Christmas song, I begin to ponder all of the weird-o lyrics that everyone has been singing for decades.  Such as the lyrics about toasting marshmallows and sharing ghost stories on Christmas (The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.)  Wrong holiday, folks, that's Halloween.  Or the snowman that asks the kids if they're married in Winter Wonderland.  Huh?  (Although I vaguely recall a fourth grade art class where two of my classmates, who had been boyfriend and girlfriend for some time, got "married;" we all tore up construction paper into bits of confetti after Mr. Zander, our off-beat art teacher, read them their vows from a dictionary.  The marriage dissolved the next day, before the confetti could be cleaned off the floor, beating even the Kardashian record.) Yesterday the lyrics that played over in my head were, "Bring us some figgy pudding, now bring us some figgy pudding, now bring us some figgy pudding and bring it RIGHT NOW."  Have you ever heard such demanding carolers?  Who asks for food when they're singing cheerfully at your door, and then asks for a specific dessert, and oh by the way bring it to us immediately?  Not to mention that even though I don't know what a figgy pudding is, it sounds nasty.
So today I was reading about figs in Matthew, chapter 21:18-22:

"Now in the morning, as He returned to the city, He was hungry.  And seeing a fig tree by the road, He came to it and found nothing on it but leaves, and said to it, 'Let no fruit grow on you ever again.'  Immediately, the fig tree withered away."

I laughed.  Sorry, but I did.  Because in my mind I paralleled Jesus' response with something I would want to do.  Take, for example, the day when I craved a BLT wrap from a favorite local coffee shop.  It was 2pm, and pregnant me was very crabby, cuz I was very hungry (something my brother-in-law has an actual word for: "crungry".)  I went through the drive-through, voracious, only to hear the teenager say through the loudspeaker, "I'm sorry, we're not serving hot food through the drive-thru today."  I wanted to set the drive-thru speaker on fire.  Did they even know how nearly-fainting hungry I was?!  Should I tell them I'm pregnant and that their decision of convenience may put my health at risk?

So I read this passage like: Jesus was hungry, saw a source of food, then was denied by the drive-thru fig tree- and because He's Jesus, he just cursed the life out of the tree because He was crungry. 

Okay, so maybe there was more to it.  The disciples were in awe that the fig tree just withered like that instantly.  They asked Jesus how He had done it, (note: not why), and He told them in verse 21, "Assuredly I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what is done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea,' it will be done."

So perhaps He was crungry and used the episode to teach the disciples about praying with faith.  Or maybe He cursed the tree all along with the initial intentions of teaching the disciples this very lesson.  It was good for me to hear today, anyway.  My prayers get so stale so often.  They're repetitious, and often without fervor- or dare I even say faith-behind them.  I want to put reverence behind the routine, passion into the petitions.  Not just go through my list.  But pray with belief that God will answer, in His time, in His way.

I'm sorry, Lord, for listing off my prayers as a to-do list for myself and for You.  I'm sorry for breezing through prayer as simply part of my day and not as an opportunity to sit with you and really pray with faith.  For my repeated prayers especially, I pray for a new way to put life, intention, and faith into my words, believing in Your power and promise to answer them.  Amen.