A deacon at the church I attend occasionally gave a sermon the other day that got me thinking—I think I’m attentive and fervent when I pray for special intentions—why don’t I get to “pick up my mat and walk”? I’ve had prayers answered before, but they are never “instant” cures like the stories in the gospel. So what more can I do?
We tend to pray most fervently when we are in need. In times of crisis we turn to God and ask him to come to our aid. And though it may be true that we pray at other times as well, it is usually with not nearly the same sense of urgency. In times of trouble we look to God to rescue us. We seek divine intervention, some extraordinary show of power, even a miracle.
It seems that God rarely answers such prayers. We know that everything is in God's power, but he never uses it when we ask him for it--or so it seems. But God actually does answer prayers. His power is always at work in our lives. We do not see it because we look for it at the wrong times and in the wrong places.
To look for God's power in time of need is to seek him at a time when we are thinking mostly about ourselves. And that is the one time when we are least likely to find him. To make contact with God we must turn our attention away from ourselves and everything else and focus on him.
We also miss the point when we look for God to act on our behalf in extraordinary ways. God rarely needs to intervene in our lives by extraordinary means because he is constantly at work in the ordinary. Everything that happens does so by the hand of God. For those who have eyes to see, the entire universe is a vast unending wonder of God's creative power. When we look inward with the eyes of faith, we see that what God has done in creating us is every bit a miracle.
And when we reflect on how much God loves us and how little we love in return, how abundant his gifts and how little our gratitude, how rich his grace and how poor our response, we begin to see the greatest miracle of all.
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