Why don't we pray
for no tribulation?
If we ask in Jesus' Name
then God will give it.
What's gone wrong?
[PAUSE]
Isn't it a bit rich of Our Lord
to tell His disciples
that their prayers in His Name
will be answered
and then to tell them
that they will suffer tribulation?
If God wants our joy to be complete
why put us through the mill?
Why not hear our prayer
and prevent us from pain?
[PAUSE]
This is a hard question
and one that many will use
as a reason for leaving Christianity
or for not taking it seriously.
It's a question that will
never really be answered,
not in this life.
There are two points
to consider
which give us some clue
as to what Our Lord means.
First,
we are to ask
in the Name of Our Lord.
How often do we pray
in the Name of Our Lord.
Just tacking on
"in Jesus' Name"
to our prayer
doesn't make it a prayer
in His Name.
It needs to be a prayer
that He would want
to put His Name to.
It needs to be a prayer
that we make in dialogue
with Him,
a prayer in keeping
with His character
and not ours alone.
It needs to be a prayer
that is part of our ongoing
conversation with Our Lord
that seeks His glory
and our happiness.
Indeed, His glory is our happiness.
This brings us to the second point.
[PAUSE]
Our prayers will be granted
so that our joy may be complete.
But our joy will not be complete
not in this life.
Our lot as human beings
is to die.
We are only happy
for a short space of time
before we fall I'll
get hurt
or die.
Our joy is never complete
in this world.
Our joy is not
in this world.
Our joy is complete
only after we have passed
from this life
into the next.
Let's be clear,
God loves us now
and will answer our prayers
that we need now
but the purpose of our prayer
must be directed
to our joy in Heaven
and what is Heaven
if not to see
the glory of God Himself?
St Philip asks Our Lord
to show him the Father
but Jesus says
that the disciples have seen the Father
in Jesus Himself.
Their joy will not be complete
when they see Our Lord
bleeding and gasping
upon the wood of the cross.
It will not be complete
when they see Him standing with them
but they do get a foretaste
of the joy that they are promised.
[PAUSE]
We will not see our prayers
not so suffer answered in this life.
They will be answered
in the next
where all our pain, sorrow and suffering
will be given context,
explanation if we need it,
and sanctification
as proof of Love.
Our prayer cannot
be a simple set of instructions
for God to fulfill
like a genie on Checkatrade.
For then we will be
disappointed.
If our relationship with God
is purely based on
transaction
or wish-fulfillment
then we cannot expect
our faith to grow
and we are in danger of losing it.
Our prayer must be
our continued contact with God
seeking His presence
His will
His glory
His love for everyone.
Our relationship with God
must be rooted deeply in Him
and that means accepting
the mystery of His fathomlessness
and of our own.
It means accepting pain
as our lives are bent
back into shape
by the growing awareness
of the presence of God in us.
But there are things
that God will always give us
if we ask for them now
in our continued conversation
with Him
- faith, hope love.
There is always
a plenteous supply of those
for us.
No comments:
Post a Comment