Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Emenike Onyia.
THE RIGHT DISPOSITION TOWARDS PRAYER
As human beings communication is part and parcel of our lives and prayer is one of the important means of communicating between God and humanity. It is a close link by which we reach God who dwells in our hearts. It is through prayer we discern the will of God for us.
Hence, if we have not been able to discern the will of God for our lives or have not had any personal relationship with God in prayers, then perhaps we should consider to examine our prayer life to know if we have been praying the right way. Thus we can learn the proper way to pray from the prayer Jesus taught his disciples as pattern of all prayers as we have it in our Gospel passage today.
In this prayer we have four traditional dimensions of prayer which includes: glorification of God, submission, justice and protection. Jesus begin by saying: “Father, hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come”, thereby teaching us that we begin any of our prayers by glorifying God. Following this is our total submission to God’s providence when we say: give us each day our daily bread.
Then, we acknowledge the justice and mercy of God when we say: for give us our sins as we for give those we have sinned against us. And finally we ask for God’s guidance and protection when we say: lead us not into temptation but deliver us from all evil.
This is important because it is the means by which we communicate with our God. But often time we treat prayer wrongly when we consider prayer as a means to only achieve what we desired without considering what God desires for us. Some of us end up spending lots of time reciting the prayers and yet we did not mean what we say.
THIS is because we have wrong disposition born from unforgiving heart which must be redirected before we can get a positive response from God. This is what St. Paul was emphasizing in our first reading today when he reminded the Galatians how he stood firm in defense of the Gentiles before Peter and the Jews.
Dear friends, as contingent being there are times when we asked and we received, sought and found, knocked and it was opened to us. But there were also times when we asked but did not receive, seek but did not find, knocked but the door remained shut. In such moments persistency and perseverance in prayer are what we are called to embrace. For they will help us to understand how to trust God knowing that he does not need to be informed of our needs, thereby encouraging us never to lose heart.
This is certainly one of the biggest challenges of our faith today. People are not just patient with God. We want to have everything right now as it is hot. Patient, persistency and perseverance are very difficult virtue for most people today.
Therefore, it is time for us to change our perspective and wrong disposition towards prayers. It is time for us to spend more quality moment in prayer and be connected with God. We must let our prayers also be meaningful and be genuine from our hearts. It is time for us to improve the quality of our prayer life by imitating Jesus, who always prayed to his heavenly Father at every possible opportunities.
But some of us end up spending lots of time reciting the prayers and yet we did not mean what we say, because we have not learnt how to dialogue with God in prayer especially when we have wrong disposition born from unforgiving heart which must be redirected before we can get a positive response from God.
LET US PRAY: Lord God, oftentimes we are not patient with you in our prayers, because we don't know how to dialogue with you in prayers. Give us the grace to learn how to dialogue with you and to persevere and be persistent in our prayer life and in every other things we do in life, especially in our relationship with others. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. Do have a fruitful day.
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