Our Catholic faith teaches us that God is always the initiator. He seeks us first. He created Adam and Eve. He found Noah and inspired him to build the ark. He sought out Abram to make him Abraham. He sought Moses through the burning bush. He begged the Hebrew people through miracle, covenant, law, and prophets to truly be his people. He finally came himself through the Incarnation as Jesus to give all people “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” (John 14:6) He comes to us through each sacrament. So why does God ask us to say “please” in our prayer? Why beg?
More specifically, why is the Church telling us today to seek God through prayers of petition? If God seeks and finds us AND is all good and all knowing, why not just “wait on the LORD”? Why not just let God give us whatever he wants us to have and be at peace with it? Why beg?
Those are tough questions that have intrigued saints and sinners through the centuries. I have not yet found a totally sufficient answer to them, so I can’t give one. But I think, if our prayer life is to be real and enriching, each of us must come to some answer that is sufficient enough that we can do what Jesus tells us to do today: Ask …seek…knock.
As I look at today’s Scripture readings, I see six clues for why God asks us to say “please.”
Clue One: Evil and Life Sometimes Put Us in Desperate Situations
Our first reading today is from the book of Esther. The story of Esther is high drama. Esther is Jewish and queen. Her husband, the king, is not Jewish and does not know of her Jewish heritage. A court official has persuaded the king to declare a day on which all Jews in his kingdom will be killed. Esther knows of this plan and is terribly torn: does she try to save her people, perhaps at the cost of her own life, or does she let them be killed? In the little snippet of the story today Esther is “seized with mortal anguish.” She prays in her desperation, “Help me, who am alone and have no help but you.”
Bad situations which are beyond our ability to manage come to most all of us. The life or death of hundreds of people may not be at stake, but we have to make decisions that have far reaching effects for both ourselves and others. Our lives can be desperate from a thousand causes. When we face such moments, we can feel—and be—terribly alone. Prayer that begs God keeps us from facing desperate situations alone.
Clue Two: Prayer Gives Us Access to God’s Wisdom
In today’s reading, Esther does not beg God, “Fix this!” She says instead, “And now, come to help me, an orphan. Put in my mouth persuasive words…” God is the initiator, but God gives us freedom. Our will is always our own. When Esther prayed, she asked God to give her wise words, effective strategies to overcome the evil. In effect, Esther asked God to speak and act through her. She bowed to his wisdom—thus accessing it.
We are to ask God, not tell God. We aren’t begging when we tell God what to do. God is not our servant. He is our Lord. If we do not ask, we will be stuck with our own wisdom—or lack of wisdom. This hits me head on. I like to solve problems. I’m pretty good at it. So pride can trip me up. I can pray and pretty much tell God what he should do. How many thousand times have I tried God’s patience that way! We need to ask God “please” to recognize we need to get out of God’s way. Only then CAN he send his wisdom to help us. He does not violate our free will.
Clue Three: Begging Prayer Gives Us Access to God’s Strength
Today’s Psalm says, “When I called, you answered me; you built up strength within me. The Lord will complete what he has done for me; your kindness, O Lord, endures forever; forsake not the work of your hands.”
Fortitude (courage) is both a natural virtue and a gift of the Holy Spirit. God does not force himself on us. When we ask, we give God the opening to enter into both our human emotions and our eternal soul. God then gives us Fortitude. He gives us the capacity to persist and persevere. He gives us energy. He gives us strategy. My observation as a therapist is that life sometimes gives us more than we can bear, but begging prayer gives us the capacity to bear it. Heroism is born of prayer.
Clue Four: God Promises to Answer Those Who Ask Him
The Gospel is from the latter part of the Sermon on the Mount. Today Jesus says, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”
This is the part of begging God that gives many of us trouble. I’ve asked God for things that he did NOT give to me. I have sought him, but he was not to be found. I have knocked on doors that did not open. And my fervor for God diminished when that happened. Sometimes I have turned away from him because God did not give, was not to be found, and NOTHING opened up in my life.
I have had dark nights. Long dark nights.
I have had temptations, and I have given in to them.
I have sought God while in a state of sin—and he was loudly quiet, visibly absent, barred from me.
It is interesting here that the Scripture reading begins, “Jesus said to his DISCIPLES.”
Disciples are those who seek to follow Jesus. That means seeking to live the radical Gospel of the WHOLE Sermon on the Mount. In retrospect, when God did not answer, was not to be found, and doors did not open I WAS NOT FOLLOWING all that the Sermon on the Mount says do. I was not free from envy or anger. I was not pure. I was not seeking righteousness. I was not forgiving. Etc, etc, etc, etc.
OR I was telling God what to do, not asking. Dark nights are necessary to cleanse us of that bad habit. We have to truly beg. We have to say “please” and mean it.
Clue Five: Begging Helps Us Be Willing to Receive the Better Gift
Jesus goes on to tell his disciples, “Which one of you would hand his son a stone when he asked for a loaf of bread, or a snake when he asked for a fish? If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will you heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him.”
The biggest fight I ever had with God was the one about having children. I grew up wanting six children. My husband wanted a large family, too. It was part of what attracted us to each other. But five years into marriage I learned that I could not bear children. I could not conceive within the confines of what the Church teaches. I was devastated—and MAD. My prayer for a year or more was not the humble prayer of Esther. It was not begging God. It was railing against him.
Still, I did stay in prayer. I did not turn against God. And, in a wonderful way, God gave us two children via adoption. They remain a great joy.
But over time, for a variety of reasons, including the prolife work I did in those years when I would have been totally immersed in my own family life if it had had what I wanted, I have come to see God gave me something far better than what I asked for. He gave me what was just right for me and for my place in God’s larger plan.
Clue Six: Begging Gives Us the Docility to Ask for What Is Good
At first glance, the last sentence in today’s Gospel seems disconnected from the rest. “Do unto others whatever you would have them do to you. This is the law and the prophets.”
Perhaps it is included because it is an often hidden clue to effective begging prayer.
God gives that which is good. We must seek that which is good. While the Psalms are filled with the prayers of people who are not seeking the good of others, you might notice, even there, the psalmist consistently will change his attitude in the middle of his prayer. He will soften and move from “destroy my enemy” to “fill me with your goodness.” God gives us—and others—what is good. From God’s wider view, that which might be good for us or for some part of God’s creation may not be good for others. God may have to wait until goodness can happen in the context of “greater good.” Begging takes us away from any sense of entitlement, so we just ask–and keep asking until the good emerges.
Prayer:
Lord, thank you for giving us the gift of begging prayer. Thank you for guiding us to receive from you by first asking of you. Thank you for the humility it teaches. Thank you for the docility it fosters. Thank you for the trust it creates over time. Thank you for your patience to me the many times I have “kicked against the goad” of your discipline of begging prayer. Forgive me for my doubts, my times of anger, and especially for so often not working from the clues for effective prayer you have given. Help me now to say “please” often, to beg well, and to be docile to whatever you would have me receive. In Jesus name. Amen.
