Raise Your Hand in Persistent Prayer to God

10-16-2016HomiliesFr. Tony Okolo

The liturgy of today invites us to reflect on the enormous power in prayer to accomplish results and change events and situations that seem impossible. It emphasizes the need to persevere especially when it appears to be a delay in getting answers to our prayer. Therefore, to experience the power of prayer we must persevere in praying and never give up.

In the first reading, the Israelites, on their way to the Promised Land, were attacked by the Amalekites, so Moses went up the top of the hill, held up his hand in prayer until victory was won. Moses’ gesture of prayer during the battle, exhibited by the extended hand demonstrates the importance of prayer in accomplishing God’s will.  It means that when we raise our hands up to God in prayer, in the battle of our lives, we are certain to gain victory over the situations because it is through prayer that we attract the mighty deeds and mercy of God in our lives. Prayer has power to change the course of events in our lives. In 2 King 20:1-21. Hezekiah was told, “Thus, says the Lord,” “Set your house in order, for you shall die, you shall not recover,” Hezekiah turned to God and prayed and God added an extra 15 years to his life. In prayer we recognize our limitedness and resign ourselves to God who is the author of our life and who knows how to change the event for us.

In the gospel, Jesus tells a story of an unjust judge who would not give right judgment to the poor widow but through her persistence and perseverance in asking, the judge gave her right judgment. The judge might have ignored the plea of this poor widow many times, but she never gave up, she kept making new trips down to the judge’s office day and night until the wicked judge relented. The lesson we learn from the parable is that, if persistence and perseverance can compel a wicked judge, who cares only for his own convenience and comfort to relent, how much more will God who is a loving and gracious father, give us, his children, what we need.

The parable emphasizes the importance of praying without giving up. The parable is meant to give the disciples and all of us God’s children fresh hope and confidence in God’s unfailing care and favor towards us. God answers prayers and that is why we should never give up when we feel the answer to our prayer is delayed.  Only God sees time whole, and therefore only God knows what is good for us in the long run. That is why Jesus encourages us to persevere in prayer. When we persevere at God’s door praying, he will certainly come.  He will certainly hear us and open the door for us.  Our problem is that we live in a society of instant food, instant drink, instant cure, and instant response, everything instant with the result that we equally expect God to take our calls instantly.  Any little delay in not responding instantly as we want and expect, we give up. Today we are called upon never to give up because those who put their trust and faith in God and entrust their lives to him can look forward with hope and confident assurance.

For us to be able to pray and pray well, we must fix time for prayer in our daily routine. The demand of our modern life is such that unless we schedule a regular time to pray, we probably won’t pray at all. If we want to grow and persevere in prayer and faith until the end of our days, then we must nourish our faith with the word of God as we are told in the second reading of today. The word of God is meant to nourish us and instruct us in the way of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Finally, at the end of each prayer we should say, Lord, let it be done to me according to your will and not my will.  God Bless You All.

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