What Prayers Are Heard and Granted?

In my prayers, what do I ask God often?  To help me become a millionaire?  To keep me healthy?  To keep my family safe?  God understands these requests.  At the same time, Christ our Lord teaches us how to pray better.  We ask for daily bread especially for those who hunger now.  We ask for our daily food of God’s word.  Christ did not teach us to pray often for our monthly income or for the sure growth of our savings or investments.

Christ teaches us to pray for God’s Kingdom of justice and peace to come home to us.  We ought to pray for the Holy Spirit to fill and empower us in order to make the light of Christ shine brighter in our world, which still has many dark corners of worry over what to eat, what to wear, and what one can secure for oneself and loved ones.  “Seek God’s Kingdom,” and we will be given as well what we really need (Luke 12:31).  God hears all prayers, but grants only some of them.  Sometimes God says “no” to our prayer of petition because our Lord knows that we are asking for something needless or even harmful in the long run.

“Increase our faith” (17:5), as a humble petition to the Lord, is one that will surely be granted.  If bad parents can sometimes give good gifts to their children, how much more will the merciful Father give the Spirit of faith to those who ask him! (11:13)  The Spirit of faith and love is the most important gift of the merciful Father to Jesus, his believers, and those who seek rest and relief from suffering and sin. 

God’s gift of faith can be shown through an amazing event like a healing miracle.  What shows greater or deeper faith, however, is the fulfillment of our duties to God and neighbor day by day with humility and without fanfare so much so that, at day’s end, we thank God for whatever good we have done, and we say, “we are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty” (17:10).

Great faith is shown by those who pray for enemies, tormentors or persecutors: “Father, forgive them” (23:34).  It is shown by those who actively hope in divine justice and peace despite a state of affairs in which corruption and violence abound; “the law is paralyzed and justice never prevails; the wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted” (Habakkuk 1:3-4).

The great faith that Jesus practiced throughout his ministry and offered on the cross is “the good deposit” entrusted to his apostles and believers down to our times.  It is our duty to “guard the good deposit” (2 Timothy 1:14) and develop it.  Thus it is better to pray daily for our faith to increase and to be nourished by God’s word, rather than for our wealth to increase or for our individual dreams to come true.

Jesus' Great Faith

The great faith of Jesus empowered him to walk calmly & cross over troubled waters in his life especially in times when he felt a combination of grief, fear & fatigue. He felt grief & fear when he was told that his former mentor, John the Baptist, a prophet of the heavenly kingdom, was beheaded by the shameless Herod Antipas (Matthew 14:1-13). He felt fatigue after a whole day of healing & feeding the souls and bodies of a crowd of thousands of men, women & children (14:14-21).

“He went up on a mountainside by himself to pray” (14:23). Although he was physically alone in his grief & fatigue, he perceived the presence of the Spirit of the loving Father in the sound of sheer silence as he prayed in solitude.

Similarly, while the prophet Elijah felt his failure, fear & fatigue after he fled from the wrathful & vengeful queen Jezebel, he recognized the very presence of Yhwh not in powerful events like a great storm, an earthquake & then a conflagration but in the sound of sheer silence (1 Kings 19:9-13).
The faith of Jesus, his faith in the Father’s great love for him & for all the weary daughters & sons of God, was tested in moments of grief, fear & fatigue & it was nurtured in moments of prayer. His Spirit of faith & not our own merit saves us from the destructiveness of our sinful passions & addictions.
“We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit itself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express” (Romans 8:26). The sound of sheer silence in prayer is primarily God’s gift & not anybody’s achievement, and thus we ought to be sober and never to be arrogant even toward those who are, or are perceived to be, faithless, sinful, or corrupt.

Jesus, the meek Messiah, learned from an assertive non-Jewish woman, and discovered the inadequacy of his initial understanding of his mission as “sent only to the lost sheep of Israel” (Mt 15:24). His faith was enriched by the great faith of the Canaanite woman who wanted the healing of her ailing daughter.

May Christ’s Spirit of faith help believers to cross over troubled waters, to guard against arrogance & to be receptive to spiritual enrichment from the “outsider” & the lowly. (See also my 03 October 2010 blog post; your comments are welcome.)

Persistent Widow

Authentic faith, constant prayer, and the pursuit of justice are inseparable in the parable of the persistent widow (Luke 18:1-8). To win over opponents, we need both to lift up our hands in prayer and to act, work, or fight, as illustrated in the story of the battle between the Israelites and the Amalekites (Exodus 17:8-16).
In the parable of the widow, who was one of the most vulnerable figures in ancient society, she faced a formidable obstacle to her pursuit of justice: “a judge who neither feared God nor cared about people” (Lk 18:2). The widow, however, was courageous and persistent.
Somebody cheated or harmed her. Perhaps she was poor and yet her son did not fulfill his duty to provide her some support. Or she had no son, and although still marriageable, her brother-in-law refused to fulfill his duty of marrying her and securing her future. Maybe her adversary gave the judge a bribe.
Because her persistent pleas were wearing him out, the unjust judge decided to grant her justice. He did the right thing for an inferior or selfish reason.
Are we like the courageous widow or the unjust judge? Don’t we sometimes do the right thing for the wrong or inferior reason?
The story-teller and theologian, Megan McKenna, is right: God is like the persistent widow rather than the unjust judge. God is not someone either selfish or indifferent whom we have to pressure, shake up, or wear out through persistent prayers in order that we can get what we want or what we think is good.
God is like the widow. Even though God’s word through the prophets at many times had been ignored or rejected, God persisted and sent the beloved Son to set free all who are imprisoned or oppressed by sin and selfishness. Even though the Son was rejected and executed shamefully, his Spirit remains and keeps on calling us to conversion, justice, peace and mercy.
Some Church leader should put up a "Chapel (or Shrine) of (God) the Persistent Widow." Do we have the deep faith to see God in the widow or in the weak or vulnerable person who persists to seek what is right? May the Lord increase our faith: may the Lord help us to be constant in prayer and steadfast in the pursuit of justice.