Dear Friends,
Today’s readings about prayer are rooted in one’s relationship with God. That relationship comes long before whatever that prayer we lift up to God.
Take Abraham, for example. Abraham and God are not strangers to one another at the beginning of today’s first reading. They had known each other in the deepest sense for many long years. God was Abraham’s constant companion, his challenge and his comfort. Abraham dared to haggle with God because they knew and loved each other well.
In the Gospel, the disciples did not ask Jesus to teach them to pray as soon as they became His followers. They experienced Jesus for a while. They witnessed His cures and listened to His parables. Throughout their time with Him, they drank in who He was and came to realize that Jesus had a strong abiding relationship with his Abba, His Daddy.
The disciples knew that, when He taught them to pray, He would be drawing on that relationship.
If you and I hold God at arms-length and at the same time expect our prayers to be fruitful, we are missing something essential. Prayer is the flowering of our relationship with God.
A second aspect of prayer found in today’s Gospel is, when we pray we are entering into mystery, continually unfolding, never exhausted.
Take Jesus’ encouragement to seek, ask and knock. Most of the time, when we do that we have a very clear idea about what we want, down to the last detail. But then, as time passes and we look back on what we asked for and how it played out, we find that something more has happened than what we asked for.
Whatever happened is what I found I want to happen.
Only that.
But that.
We had received, found and admitted into our lives the unexpected, and valued it. One way of summing up the unexpected is to say: “Things worked out.”… not even realizing that God was in the giver of this new gift.
In our deep prayer, we don’t change God’s mind. Rather, we move into deeper harmony with God. Trust in God and personal effort are found at one and the same time in prayer.
So, the next time we come to God seeking, asking, and knocking, we’d better know for certain that more is happening than meets the eye, especially when we allow the Spirit to lure, sway, and nudge our prayer.
We are being drawn into God who is our comfort, companion, and challenge. We will become different in Spirit because of our heartfelt prayer.
That is the ultimate gift of being one with the mystery of God.
~Sister Joan Sobala
