18 November 2017 - wait in faith

Today's Readings (Audio)

Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones
who call out to him day and night? 

The LORD is a just judge. He does not hesitate to answer the prayers of his chosen ones. The unjust judge waits to respond because he is lazy and because answering the request of the widow is difficult for him. If God seems to delay in answering our prayers it is only to build up desire and faith within us. He tells us to ask and keep asking, to knock and keep knocking. It is not to motivate God, but to help us to have more faith in him. The opposite often happens. We ask once and despair of ever receiving an answer when that one time does not get an immediate response. We're better at treating prayer like a science experiment where we do it and see if it works. We are called to treat prayer as an act of faith in the just judge who longs to answer us.

We wait, and there is a mystery to the waiting. It is hard to predict God's timing. We tend to grow impatient and despair. We are called, instead, to learn to trust, even as we bring our requests to prayer again and again. We cannot bring them only once. We must bring them at every opportunity until we receive answers. Each new prayer should increase our confidence that God is working. We should have more and more peace that things are in his hands.

do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God (see Philippians 4:6).

Prayer gives us peace and takes away our anxiety even before the answer comes because it puts us in constant contact with the One who will answer. His answer is as certain as the coming of dawn each new day.

When peaceful stillness compassed everything
and the night in its swift course was half spent,
Your all-powerful word, from heaven's royal throne
bounded, a fierce warrior, into the doomed land,
bearing the sharp sword of your inexorable decree.

In the absence of an immediate response we make the mistake of feeling forgotten. But we are not forgotten. God is very near.

For he remembered his holy word
to his servant Abraham.
And he led forth his people with joy;
with shouts of joy, his chosen ones.