In today’s Gospel, we learn the value of persistence, and we
see what can happen with a lot of perseverance, with an unrelenting desire to
never give up; knocking, asking, seeking, until something happens, until a
resolution is, at last, reached.
And though this persistence could be applicable to anything
in our lives, Jesus is making it specific to the greatest part of our lives,
our spiritual lives, our prayer.
And He shows us what is possible, what can happen when our
greatest prayers, the ones we desire God to answer the most, are accompanied by
this great persistence.
However, something about this doesn’t seem to be right,
because if this were truly the case then the healing we pray for, the
securities we desire, the life we want, we would have, our perseverance should
have paid off, something, in our lives, should have changed. And truth be told,
something does change, we do.
The great Christian author C.S. Lewis, no stranger to prayer
and even less of a stranger to suffering, watched as his wife was dying of
cancer.
A friend taking note of this once asked him if he really thought he could change God with his prayer for his wife’s healing, Lewis replied: “Prayer doesn't change God; it changes me.”
A friend taking note of this once asked him if he really thought he could change God with his prayer for his wife’s healing, Lewis replied: “Prayer doesn't change God; it changes me.”
This Gospel began with a simple request: “Lord, teach us how
to pray,” and the first thing Jesus teaches is a variation on the “Our Father,”
a prayer of abandonment, a prayer that asks us for obedience to the Will of
God, to accept Our Daily Bread, whatever that may be, and out of that, to pray
the prayer of perseverance, because, by doing so, we become stronger, by doing
so, we, indeed, learn what it means to truly pray.
To put it more simply, when we pray, it should not be a list
of what we want and what we desire, but, first and foremost, an acceptance of
what God wants and the ability to mold our prayers according to Him. So that it
is not bargaining with God, it is, instead, trying to seek His Will in the
midst of our own.
And it is that which truly changes us, it is that which
helps us to understand, it is not God spoiling us, it is not God granting our
every wish, it is God teaching us as a Father teaches his child that everything
we want we, unfortunately, cannot have, and though painful, at times, it allows
us to grow closer to Him, to seek Him more, so that those things He does desire
of us, and we ask for, will, eventually, be given and, in the end, our Father
in heaven will give to us that which we truly need the most.
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