Wrong prayers

Last week we were thinking about prayer in the sense of asking, and we saw that prayer means asking for what God wants us to have.  It is completely useless to ask him for things which would do us no good if we had them.  Suppose, just before dinnertime, a small girl – or boy – asks her mother if she can have some sweets.  Well, no sensible mother would let her have them because they would spoil her appetite so that she would not eat her dinner.  The girl would like the sweets, but they wouldn’t do her any good.  So one of the reasons why people don’t get what they ask God for is that they ask for the wrong things and God says ‘No’.  The Collect for the 10th Sunday after Trinity reminds us of the importance of asking for what God wants us to have:

“Let your merciful ears, O Lord,
be open to the prayers of your humble servants;
and that they may obtain their petitions
make them to ask such things as shall please you …” (1)

As St James tells us “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures” (NRSV, James 4:3).

For you must remember that when God gives us things in answer to prayer he does so in order to bring us closer to him or so that we may do some good with them.

Right prayers

Last week we compared prayer to a key that will open a cupboard labelled, “What God wants to happen”.  But do not think that, when we ask for the right things which God wishes us to have, then the cupboard will open immediately and we shall have them at once.  It may do, but more likely it may not, because, before God gives us what we ask for, he first waits until we are ready to have it.

Suppose, for example, that a small child asked his or her father for a two wheel bicycle with gears.  Well, the father wouldn’t give the bicycle until he was sure the child was going to be able to learn to ride it safely, even if it meant waiting six months or a year.  And by that time the child would be ready to learn to balance on it and work the gears and the brakes.  Therefore, by keeping us waiting for an answer to our prayers, God not only makes sure we really want what we are asking for, but he also teaches us how to make the best use of it when we get it. 

So we must be patient and persistent in our prayers, knowing that God will give us the right thing at the right time.

St Monica

Monica prays for Augustine

Not only does God often keep us waiting for an answer, but sometimes it comes in a very unexpected way.  This is what happened to St Monica.  St Monica, who was a very good Church woman, had a son called Augustine, but when he was 17 he got in with some bad companions and had no use at all for the Christian religion.  The only thing she could do for him was to pray for him, and this she did every day but it seemed to make not the slightest difference.  Augustine just went from bad to worse.

At last, when Monica had almost lost hope, a bishop encouraged her by saying, “Go on praying; the child of so many tears cannot perish”.

Augustine sails for Rome

When Augustine was 29, he told his mother that he wanted to leave North Africa, where they lived, and go to Rome.  Monica was afraid of what would happen to him alone in a great city and did her best to persuade him not to go.  Augustine pretended to give in to her but, while she was praying in a nearby church that he might not set sail, he seized the opportunity to give her the slip and went on board the ship.  And when his mother came out of the church, he was already heading for the open sea and for Rome.

Augustine meets St Ambrose

From Rome Augustine went to the city of Milan in North Italy, and there he met the man who, by God’s will, was to change his whole life.  It was St Ambrose, the saintly and forceful Bishop of Milan, and through his influence Augustine was baptised.  Later Augustine was ordained a priest and became a bishop in North Africa.  He was such a great and holy man that we now call him St Augustine the Great.

Monica’s prayers are answered

Thus St Monica’s prayers were at last answered, but in a very unexpected way.  For if Augustine had not set sail for Italy, he would never have met St Ambrose and might never have become a Christian.  As St Augustine himself wrote afterwards, “…I lied to my mother…and got away…And what was it, O Lord, that she, with such an abundance of tears, was asking of You, but that You would not permit me to sail?  But You, mysteriously counselling and hearing the real purpose of her desire, granted not what she then asked, in order to make me what she was ever asking.  The wind blew and filled our sails, and withdrew the shore from our sight; and she, wild with grief, was there on the morrow, and filled Your ears with complaints and groans, which You disregarded…she loved to have me with her, and knew not what joy You were preparing for her by my absence". (2)

SUMMARY

1. There are some things which God will only give us in answer to prayer, but he waits first until we are ready to make the best use of them.  That is why he often delays answering our prayers even when we are praying for what he wants us to have.

2. He gives us things in order to bring us closer to himself or so that we can do some good with them.

References

1. ©The Archbishops’ Council (2000) Common Worship.  Contemporary language.  Collects and Post Communions for the seasons.  Trinity and Ordinary Time: Tenth Sunday after Trinity.  Available from:

http://www.cofe.anglican.org/worship/liturgy/commonworship/texts/collects/contemp/postwhit.html  (Accessed 17 August 2010) (Internet).

2. Augustine of Hippo (c 400 AD) The Confessions, Book V, Chapter 8 (15).  Available from: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/110105.htm  (Accessed 17 August 2010) (Internet).