Here is a survey with a single question in it. When you pray earnestly and intensely, from your heart, do you find that your trials usually increase first, before God answers your prayers “in the way He knows best.” That has been my experience. If I ask for patience, he answers my prayers. Guess how? By giving me situations in my life that test my patience. If I ask for the ability to forgive a loved one, someone who has hurt me, but is now out of my life. Guess what happens next? I hear some news from some far-off place and out of the blue about this person and my first reaction is recall all the bitterness and anger.
If I ask for an increase of any of the cardinal virtues – Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance, Faith, Hope or Charity – guess what happens? I precisely get the trials, tests, and tribulations to help me practice those virtues. Does God have a sick sense of humor; a sadistic streak; does he delight in watching me squirm? When I think about it, I realize that salvation does not come easy for mankind. We know what God made his own Son go through. So why would I somehow be spared these lesser trials? But the more curious question is – Is this really the only way, the best way, for my prayers to be answered?
Never My Way
When God answers my prayers, it is usually in His way. This usually means I get taken to places that I never wanted to go. Jesus’ words to St Peter in John 21:18 come to mind, “… and lead you where you do not want to go.” Usually, before I begin to write my reflections, I start by reading the passages for the day and meditating on them. But this time was different. As a family, we had just begun an advent Novena to our Blessed Mother. Two days in and we had bad news pouring in on all fronts. The thoughts captured in my previous paragraph were on top of my mind. So, in frustration I decided to start writing them down. It was only after finishing that paragraph that I read the readings.
And guess what they are about … The first reading is from Isaiah 30 and the Gospel passage from Matthew 9 & 10. Isaiah is proclaiming God’s own words – that God will be gracious to you when you cry out. Matthew talks about how Jesus’ heart was moved with pity for the people because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd. I pray, God takes pity. He answers. Isn’t that how it is supposed to work? So, what is the catch? Two days into our Novena and I was not expecting our prayers to be “answered” so soon. It was quite likely I was going to be taken once again to places I did not want to go to.
Always His Way
Think about a time when someone helped you. To affect that aid, the Samaritan in question would have to intrude into your life. This intrusion is not necessarily physical, but it is, ipso facto, an intrusion, an entry into your life. In the Samaritan’s case this does not necessarily require any internal change within you. But, if God, in His mighty Holiness were to intrude into your life, would one be able to receive His aid without adequate preparation, a rooting out of all that is unholy and lacking in virtue within you, to receive Him in? If one is so full of oneself when one asks God to intervene, there is not going to be “much room” left for God to enter in, correct?
I have known this always and it has always made me somewhat cautious about what I pray for. Because He always listens, and He always answers. But He answers only when he also knows that I am truly ready for what I am asking for. If you feel your prayers are not getting answered, then, guess what … ask yourself this question – are you truly ready for your prayers to be answered?
And, let me also tell you this, if you are at that point in your life where you need to ask for God’s intervention and you do not because of the changes that will be demanded of you, guess what … That point in your life will fester like a sore until you are willing to accept the necessity of internal change.
Then watch as God gloriously acts, and you wonder why you wasted all that time. No matter how often I experience this, I forget this. I forget that He knows me more than I will ever know myself. He gives me a choice, to choose to let Him enter in or for me to harden my heart. He will also let me choose the time. But he always “encourages” me to make that choice soon, because he has a plan for my life. And he is loath to let me waste that. So, it has got to be His way. Amen.
