Rev Ever­son Sie­u­nar­ine

Tere­sa of Avi­la, a 16th Cen­tu­ry saint, says, "Prayer is not just spend­ing time with God...If it ends there, it is fruit­less. No, prayer is dy­nam­ic. Au­then­tic prayer changes us-un­masks us." This is a ex­cel­lent ad­mo­ni­tion for some of us who think of pray­ing as a kind of bar­gain­ing. We have in­vest­ed so much time, so much ef­fort and funds in re­li­gious mat­ters, so there­fore bless­ings and re­wards from the Di­vine should nat­u­ral­ly fol­low. Or we may think pray­ing is like "mak­ing a deal." If I was to spend more time in prayer, give more to char­i­ty or to church, be more reg­u­lar and pi­ous with re­li­gious oblig­a­tions then God would spare me from the hard­ships vis­it­ed on oth­ers.

Prayer should en­able us to ma­ture in faith, not to be­come bet­ter ne­go­tia­tors with the Almighty. When we pray we are not deal­ing with a tooth fairy or a San­ta Claus but with the Lord of heav­en and earth, the Sov­er­eign Ruler over all. Through prayer we should grow in the un­der­stand­ing of who God is and what He re­quires of us as well as in the un­der­stand­ing of who we are and what is ex­pect­ed of us. As we pray we are al­so look­ing at our­selves with a bold hon­esty. We re­alise we are not the peo­ple we ap­pear to be in the work­place or in the sanc­tu­ary. This, of course, can be a very un­nerv­ing ac­knowl­edge­ment or con­fes­sion, but it does free us from the habit of wear­ing masks and dis­guis­es just to please oth­ers.

The Phar­isees and teach­ers of the law in Je­sus' time were al­ways ready to in­struct, to give ad­vice and warn­ings. But Je­sus warned his dis­ci­ples against fol­low­ing their ex­am­ple, for they ne­glect­ed "the more im­por­tant mat­ters of the law –jus­tice. mer­cy and faith­ful­ness." (Matt 23 : 23 ) He spoke about bring­ing gifts to the al­tar and re­mem­ber­ing that "your broth­er has some­thing against you". It was im­por­tant, Je­sus said, that one leave the gift, "re­turn and be rec­on­ciled to your broth­er, then come and of­fer your gift."(Matt 5 : 22,24 ) We are of­ten re­mind­ed to pray for our en­e­mies, for those who per­se­cute us, that we may "chil­dren of our Fa­ther in heav­en." (Matt 5: 45 ) Prayer is al­so meant to free us from self-cen­tred­ness. Even though we may be pray­ing in a soli­tary place, pray­ing in silent med­i­ta­tion by our­selves, we must be aware that we are nev­er alone in God's world. We are al­ways de­pen­dent on oth­ers and al­ways re­lat­ed to oth­ers. Pray­ing should be equip­ping us to be­come bet­ter ser­vants of God.

When Paul told the Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans to pray con­tin­u­al­ly, he al­so re­mind­ed them to live in peace with each oth­er, to be pa­tient and kind in their deal­ing with one an­oth­er. Pray­ing opens our heart and mind to em­brace oth­ers as mem­bers of one fam­i­ly in God's house­hold. When we pray for heal­ing of our emo­tion­al or phys­i­cal prob­lems we are aware that there are many whose con­di­tions are much worse than ours and who need our prayer­ful sup­port. As Je­sus taught us, a prayer for God's for­give­ness of our sins must re­mind us of our oblig­a­tion to for­give those who have wronged us. In his let­ter, the apos­tle James makes a time­ly and se­ri­ous ob­ser­va­tion about our prais­ing God. "With the tongue we praise our Lord and Fa­ther and with it we curse men who have been made in God's like­ness. Out of the same mouth come praise and curs­ing. My broth­ers, this should not be." ( James 3: 9, l0 ) As we pray let us of­fer our stub­born and de­fi­ant "self" to be trans­formed by God's grace and mer­cy. We would grow in the like­ness of Christ and be blessed with a greater will­ing­ness to un­der­stand, re­spect and care for our broth­ers and sis­ters.