We begin with Abraham’s dogged pleas for the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Ultimately, his effort came to no avail but the point is, God did hear and He granted the repeated requests of Abraham to stay the destruction of the cities. Sadly, in the end, only Abraham’s nephew, Lot and his family were spared. The story of Abraham’s persistence in begging God’s mercy to save the cities is helpful for us in terms of our praying.
Praying has to be persistent. This is important for a “hopeless” generation. Why “hopeless”? We have a mechanical sense of praying that is best analogised by the image of a vending machine. Our praying relationship with God is organised along a mechanical formula. Just like a vending machine, as long as coins or notes are inserted into the slot, the desired product will be dispensed. It is basically “programmed” in the sense that there is no relationship but instead, what we have with God is characterised by commerce. “I pray, so you better answer”.
Persistence is not “commercialised” by which we expect a return for the investment of our prayers. The tenacity of our prayer comes from trust that God will answer our prayers in His own time. Beyond requesting, at the heart of our praying is our relationship with God. The Lord’s Prayer established that God’s will is the foundation of our relationship and as such our praying should take its inspiration from “Thy Will be done”.
Here the will of God is not and should not be conceived of as coming from a demanding God—a deity hell-bent on frustrating our human wants and needs. The Prayer taught by Jesus is premised on a loving relationship with the Father. The word “Abba” in Aramaic must have made such an impression on the early hearers that they retained its usage. It captures the entirety of God’s love for us which Jesus invites us to, that is, to call upon “Abba” because He is loving.
The context of our prayers is because we have a Father who cares for us. However, the temptation is to reduce care and concern “existentially” to a God dispensing what we ask of from Him, forgetting that the basis for our request is so that God’s will can be done on earth as it is in heaven. In stating that God’s will is to be done, there is no denigration of the prayer of asking. We witness that in Abraham. He asked and asked and almost badgered the Lord. The point is to never stop asking. However, the purpose of persistent praying is not to bend God’s will to ours. As Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane has shown us, “Father, Thy Will and not mine be done”.
These are powerful words and they challenge the space of our prayer occupied by “I, me and myself”. Not only is the “self” inflated and enlarged, but it is also surrounded by social media noise which makes discerning God’s will for us next to impossible. Each time we pray the Lord’s Prayer, without realising it, we are signing a blank cheque for God to cash. Again, it is not as clinical as it sounds, as if God were waiting just to impose Himself on us. Instead the Lord’s Prayer invites us to deepen the relationship with God to the point that what we ask for mirrors Jesus’ prayer, to conform to what the Father desires of us and for us. The purpose of prayer is the union of hearts between God and us.
To arrive at that place where our hearts can speak to God and at the same time, hear Him, we need solitude. Without solitude, there is no contemplation. Seclusion, silence and solitude provide space to be “alone” with the “Alone”. We enter the space of beholding our God and acknowledging our dependence on Him alone. The act of praying recognises that God is the source of our “being” and not just the source of our “well-being”. Without prayer, without our connexion to Him, the source of supernatural life in us will dry up. Last week, the example of Martha and Mary taught us one thing and it is the need for balance. We need to eat but we also need to commune with God. The exclusion of one from the other can only lead to the impoverishment of the soul.
Many of us are trapped in a kind of prayer which has basically stagnated at the level of asking from God. It is true that Jesus did say in the Gospel that we should seek, ask and knock but our prayers seemed to have remained there. We have come to expect that God must answer our prayers. The dilemma arises when hope is tied to this expectation. Whatever we hope for, the reply must correspond to what we expect and when the answer does not meet our expectations, we lose hope. Health, end to conflicts, job security etc are some major concerns we have.
Perhaps the experience of a child asking from his parents can teach us that not everything we ask for will be good for us even if we think that it is good for us. If God does not always hear our prayers, that means that sometimes we are being prepared for something else. This requires trust in Him and the virtue of faith is sorely short in supply.
To establish the Kingdom in the Lord’s Prayer, we must wean ourselves from this kind of “I, me and myself” asking. If our prayers remain at the level of asking, then praying must be “successful”. Otherwise, overwhelmed by failure, we will languish hopelessly. The Novena of Grace to St Francis Xavier has a formulation which puts into perspective how we should pray: “If what I ask is not for the glory of God and the good of my soul, then give me what is conducive to both”. This prayer gives God space to be God and it opens up space for us to hear Him speak to us. In God, failure is not always failure. Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane is our main model. In Him, the Cross was not a sign of failure in prayer but a symbol of victory. In our prayers, God converts us. He changes us and it is not we who convert Him. The humility of true prayer is “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”.
