Sometimes, given our necessarily limited perspectives, the good that God has providentially ordained to come to us through some instance of sin or suffering may be beyond our ken, and then in our prayers we will almost inevitably ask for a lesser gift than the one that God is about to give. Yet this is the very reason, Calvin comments, why our Lord draws this conclusion, for taking Matthew 7:11 to heart can prevent us from giving ourselves too much free rein to indulge in what may prove to be “foolish and unworthy fancies in prayer.” And thus, as Calvin rather daringly puts it, Christ subjects our prayers to God’s will in order to restrain our Father “from giving us more than He knows is for our good.”
Mark R. Talbot, Bad Actors on a Broken Stage
(from With Calvin in the Theater of God, edited by John Piper and David Mathis)
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