Persistence in Prayer ~ by M. A. Allen

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Our readings today tell us how to have a vital and personal relationship with the living and true God. We learn that this relationship can be attained through persistent prayer made in a spirit of humility to our God.

A perfect example of this persistence in prayer can be found in the first reading from the Book of Genesis where we find Abraham continually begging God not to destroy Sodom if there are innocent people to be found in the city. Even though Abraham asks for fewer and fewer innocent people at each request, God listens patiently to Abraham and agrees each time not to destroy the city.

While Abraham was persistent; he also trusted that God was willing to listen no matter what! You see, our God is waiting for us to address Him too. He wants us to come to Him with our needs. Our Heavenly Father knows that we depend on Him and He is patient even with our sometime awkward words.

In Luke's Gospel, we discover that the disciples of Jesus recognize that He has an especially close relationship with God. They have often seen Jesus deep in prayer. The disciples had noted that John the Baptizer taught his own followers how to pray, so they decide to ask Jesus to teach them how to pray also. And that is how we received the beautiful prayer that Jesus taught His disciples and that has come down to us over the millennia.

The Lord's Prayer is the model that we want to follow in all our prayers to our Heavenly Father. Its elements include praise of our God... a prayer for the coming of the Kingdom... a petition for "our daily bread" or whatever we need to support us in our daily lives... a request for forgiveness for ourselves and to acknowledge our forgiveness of others, and an appeal to God to protect us from the evil one.

Jesus reminds us that if we ask, we will receive; if we seek, we will find. If we knock, the door will be opened.

If we persist in our prayer, our God will answer. But because God's time is different from human time, the response to our prayer might come when we least expect it; or in a slightly different manner.

In trust, we pray the Psalmist's words:

"I will give thanks to you, O Lord, with all my heart; for you have heard the words of my mouth..." Ps.138