Some people say you should be careful what you pray for because God might give it to you. They mean something like this: If you ask for patience, then God will fill your life with stress. It’s like God is the type of trainer who throws you into the deep end to teach you to swim.

After teaching for about ten years, I’m struck with how that way of talking about God makes him to be such a poor teacher. Of course, by throwing someone into the deep end an instructor will teach some people to swim, but others will learn only to hate and fear the water; others will drowned. Throwing someone in the deep end is about the laziest, most unwise way to teach someone to swim. To bring it back to my context, imagine someone hires you to teach them Spanish and you drive them to Mexico, drop them off, and come back home. Pretty easy for the teacher.

I don’t, however, think this view of God is a modern creation. It’s pretty common to fear those who have authority over us. I hear the sentiment echoed in scripture. The psalms pray against it, and Jesus teaches against it with an understanding smile.

Psalm 38:1 is not the most pointed example, but I do think the psalmist prays against a similar fear — a fear that God will respond too harshly.

O LORD, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath.

Matthew 7:9–10 is my favorite:

Who among you, when his son ask for bread, would give him a rock? Or if he asks for a fish would give him a snake!?

If that verse were a text message from Jesus, I think he’d quickly follow it up with “LOL!”

If we know that throwing someone into the deep end isn’t the best way to make a good swimmer, surely to God, God himself knows that making us better image bearers doesn’t happen by hitting us when we ask for help.