Authentic prayer leads to true self-knowledge, true humility

I want to continue our discussion on prayer.

Last week, I showed that prayer for Jesus was bound up with an intimate relationship with his Father.

The disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray because they saw him doing it so often and with such intensity. They perceived the depth of his relationship with God, and they wanted that kinship also.

Jesus stresses the importance of persisting in prayer. Even if at times God may be slow to answer, Jesus tells us we need to persevere. God will give us what we need when we need it.

Prayer is not magic, coercing God to do what we want. When I was stationed at St. Thomas Aquinas at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, some students partied more than they studied. When exam time came, they would fill the church with papers continuing instructions to say a “special” prayer several times and leave some copies in church. This magical prayer became a substitute for studying.

God is not going to jump through our “hoops” because we press the “right buttons.” That’s treating God as a vending machine, not as a loving person. We would not do that with a significant love one; why would we do that with our loving God?

Sometimes, God answers our prayer even when we have doubts.

A pastor of a storefront church called the Almighty God Tabernacle was working late one Saturday night. At 10 p.m. he called his wife to let her know he was coming home. The phone rang and rang but no answer. He thought it was strange, but decided to wrap things up and try again in a few minutes. When he tried again, she answered right away. He asked her why she hadn’t answered before, and she said that it hadn’t rung. They brushed it off as a fluke.

The following Monday, the pastor received a call at the church office from a man wanting to know why he had called Saturday night. The pastor was puzzled and couldn’t figure out what the man was talking about.

The caller said, “It rang constantly, but I didn’t answer.” The pastor remembered the apparently misdirected call and apologized for disturbing the gentleman, explaining that he had intended to call his wife.

The man said, “OK, let me tell you my story. I was planning to commit suicide Saturday night, but before I did, I prayed, ‘God if you’re there, and you don’t want me to do this, give me a sign now.’ At that point my phone started to ring. I looked at the caller ID screen, and it said, ‘Almighty God.’ I was afraid to answer!”

After that experience, the man received regular counseling from the pastor.

Sometimes God answers our prayers in strange ways.

The best way to pray is to practice it. Prayer does not require withdrawing from our culture. If prayer were solely a personal matter, Jesus would have taught us to say “My Father,” instead of “Our Father.” It is “Our Father,” our life, our society, our culture, our time and our place.

St. Teresa of Avila once said, “Prayer is not just spending time with God. It is partly that, but if it ends there, it is fruitless. No, prayer is dynamic. Authentic prayer changes us, unmasks us, strips us, indicates where growth is needed. Authentic prayer never leads to complacency but needles us – makes us uneasy at times. It leads us to true self-knowledge, to true humility.”

The basis of all prayer is a relationship of trust and intimacy with God. We all need to develop a childlike dependence on “Our Father” who gives us what is good for us.