Let’s be insistent in our prayers

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

WHEN the disciples asked Christ to teach them how to pray, they were not only given what is now known as the Lord’s Prayer, or the Our Father, but also were egged to be insistent in their prayers. (cfr. Lk 11,1-13)

“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you,” Christ told them. “For every one that asks, receives; and he that seeks, finds; and to him that knocks, it shall be opened,” he reassured them. (Lk 11,9-10)

Doubling down on that assurance, Christ told them, “Which of you, if he asks his father bread, will he give him a stone? Or a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask for an egg, will he reach him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father from heaven give the good Spirit to them that ask him?” (Lk 11,11-13)

We will always have problems and difficulties in this life. But they should not be a reason for us to fall into despair. Rather, in these instances of the hard predicaments, when we seem to be at a loss as to what to do, we should just see at what God does, after we have done all things possible to solve our problems.

We need to trust in God’s providence and mercy. We have to learn to live a spirit of abandonment in the hands of God. Yes, if we have faith in God, in his wisdom and mercy, in his unfailing love for us, we know that everything will always work out for the good. If we are with God, we can always dominate whatever suffering can come our way in the same manner that Christ absorbed all his passion and death on the cross.

Let’s always remember that God, in his ineffable ways, can also talk to us through these crosses. In fact, he can convey precious messages and lessons through them. It would be good that we have a theological attitude toward them, and be wary of our tendency to react to them in a purely human way, based only on our senses and feelings and on some worldly standards and criteria.

We have to be quick to discern what God is telling us through them. Let’s be quick to see in these problems golden opportunities to receive more graces and other blessings from God. These graces and blessings can deepen our love for God and neighbor, enrich our understanding of things, occasion the birth and development of virtues. They can truly do us a lot of good.

There’s really no reason to be too worried and anxious when we encounter some difficulty in our life. In fact, we have every reason to be confident and at peace, focused on what we are supposed to do. And that’s because we are always in God’s hands.

Whatever situation we may be in, we can be sure that God will always provide for what is truly needed by us, and it may not be what we want. We just have to trust him completely for he knows better than we do, and what we want may not be what we need. It may not even be what is good for us.

We should just insist on praying, asking for God’s help, irrespective of how things go. Nothing is wasted and everything is actually a gain when we pray.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com