FAITH and prayer are closely linked. Faith is the belief in the things that Jesus revealed to us about God, while prayer is turning our mind and heart to God and listening to what he reveals to us.
The apostles said to Jesus “Increase our faith”, and Jesus replied,“If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, be uprooted and planted in the sea, and it would obey you”.
To pray is to focus our heart on God, to love and to trust him and to have faith in God’s concern for us. Every prayer is an act of faith in God, and conversely every time we turn to God in faith, we are praying. It is no more possible to have faith without prayer than to swim without water. We must try to pray to God with the right spirit. Often we try to bring God around to our way of thinking rather than putting our thoughts under God’s guidance. Sometimes we regard prayer as a kind of magical last resort, worth a try when all else appears to fail.
Just like two friends who were going for a walk, when they came across a ladder against a house being painted. One of the friends refused to go under the latter, so the other friend said:
Surely you don’t believe in superstition? – No, replied the other friend, but I never waste an opportunity of avoiding an accident.
May be that’s how some of us approach prayer. We don’t strongly believe in it, but we admit the possibility that it might work, as a last resort.
Jesus did not just teach his disciples how to pray, he showed them how to pray by his own example. Jesus prayed to the Father often with genuine faith and resolution, but he left the outcome to the Father.
Often when he was addressing the crowds, he would turn to God and addresses him as “Father”. In the scriptures, we often read how Jesus quietly slipped away to his favourite place for quiet prayer.
We too can ask Jesus, Lord increase our faith:
- Teach us that faith isn’t about just believing something, but about believing in you, the Son of God, in order to open us to your Spirit, and grasp your Word, and to follow closely in your footsteps.
- Give us faith that is centred on what is essential to live our faith in our time today, based on your living presence in our hearts and in our community.
- Make us live a more vital relationship with you, knowing that you are our teacher and know what is best for us.
- Help us to live our faith more humbly and with compassion towards our brothers and sisters, and make us instruments of your merciful love.
- Teach us to live a Christian life, reaching out to others, and being witnesses of your love and kindness to a world that is torn apart.
- Teach us to discover that faith just doesn’t consist of believing in the God, but in a God that strengthens us, develops our capacity to love and is present amongst us. Teach us to follow you by taking up our cross each day.
- May we experience you in our midst, and renewing our lives when we need your presence close to us.
Prayer is the practice of being in the presence of God. It is the place where pride is abandoned, hope is lifted, and supplication is made.
Prayer is the place of admitting our need, of adopting humility, and claiming dependence upon God. Prayer is the needful practice of the Christian. Prayer is the exercise of faith and hope.
Prayer is the privilege of touching the heart of the Father through the Son of God, Jesus our Lord.
Sometimes, too often, we ignore prayer and seek to accomplish things through our own will or by ourselves, those things that we desire to have or happen.
For those of us who are too often guilty of this, we need to bow our knees, confess our doubts, receive God’s forgiveness, and beg that the will of the Lord be done above our own. God is loving and He knows what is best for us and others, even if it doesn’t always seem to make the most sense at the time
We so often come to the Lord with legitimate requests for healing, conversions, and needs and yet the answers we hope for often do not come. We wonder and sometimes doubt. Yet, we persevere and praise God.
We pray because we know that God hears us and because we desire to see our prayers answered. We should pray with faith, trusting God. We should pray consistently, trusting God. We should pray for healing, trusting God. We should pray for others, trusting God.
Whether our prayers are answered or are not remember this: If we knew what the Lord knew, we wouldn’t change a thing.
Prayer changes the one praying because in prayer, you are in the presence of God as you lay before Him your complete self in confession and dependence. There is nothing to hide when in quiet supplication we are reaching into the deepest part of ourselves and admitting our needs and failures. In so doing, our hearts are quiet and pride is stripped and we enjoy the presence of God.