Many years ago there was a children's riddle that went, If God can do anything, can He squeeze toothpaste back into the tube?

Since the answer was never given, we are going to have to remain in the dark on this question. But the question in turn begs another: Can we expect God as we understand God to solve problems in our lives that don't actually exist to begin with?

We turn to God over and over like little children with broken toys who moan, "Fix it, Daddy!" But what is there to be fixed? Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, our prayer requests are directed towards what we want. God's world is awry, in our not-so-humble opinion, and we want the matter fixed. But there is nothing wrong with God's world, whatever we may think -- and if there is nothing wrong with it, how can it be fixed?

The formulation of the Eleventh Step has to become the basis of all prayer -- the seeking of God's will and the power to carry that out, not the infantile whining of children. As an early Christian writer says, When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.