God Changes Us A mother sent her fifth grade boy up to bed. In a few minutes she went to make sure that he was getting in bed. When she stuck her head into his room, she saw that he was kneeling beside his bed in prayer. Pausing to listen to his prayers, she heard her son praying over and over again. "Let it be Tokyo! Please dear God, let it be Tokyo!" When he finished his prayers, she asked him, "What did you mean, 'Let it be Tokyo'?" "Oh," the boy said with embarrassment, "we had our geography exam today and I was praying that God would make Tokyo the capital of France." Prayer is not a magical means by which we get God to do what we want. Prayer is an inner openness to God which allows his divine power to be released in us. Ultimately, the power of prayer is not that we succeed in changing God, but that God succeeds in changing us. (by Robert L. Allen from Greatest Passages of the Bible, CSS Publishing Co.) St Padre Pio of Petralcina gave a beautiful analogy in one of his last sermons. He explained that we are like children sitting on the floor at our motherŐs knee. And God is like our loving mother, who is working on a piece of embroidery. Now the child can only see the underside of the embroidery hoop. From that perspective, it looks like an absolute mess: the colors are all mixed up, there is no discernible pattern, nothing makes sense. But from the motherŐs perspective, the embroidery is slowly taking on its perfect, beautiful form. If the child were to complain that the mother is making a mess, the mother would smile and ask the child to be patient. And every once in a while, the mother might even give her child a little glimpse of the top of the hoop. Sometimes our prayers are like that. We think we know whatŐs best, and we just donŐt understand why God doesnŐt grant our prayer. But actually, we are only looking at the underside of GodŐs Providence. We simply canŐt see the whole picture. His perspective, on the other hand, is complete. And so when He doesnŐt answer our prayers the way we would like Him to, we can be sure that itŐs only because He has something better in mind. In a culture where arrogant confidence in technology and science reigns supreme, it is good to be reminded of this. We are not God. We need God. We will always need God. Asking, seeking, and knocking didnŐt go out of style with the discovery of electricity. God wants us to admit and accept this need, to take seriously His invitation to ask, seek, and knock. If we do, we will give Him more room to work in our lives. First Lesson in Prayer A little boy was sitting next to a grizzled holy man seated beside the Ganghes River. "Will you teach me to pray?" the boy asked. "Are you sure that you want to learn?" the holy man asked? "Yes, of course." With that the holy man grabbed the boy's neck and plunged his head into the water. He held them there while the boy kicked and screamed and tried to get away. Finally, after an interminable period the holy man let the boy out of the water. "What was that?" the boy asked. "That was your first lesson in prayer. When you long for God the way that you longed to breathe, then you will be able to pray." The Return One day in the synagogue, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev seemed to be observing a group of his Hasidim as they prayed. When they were finished, he approached them with a hearty greeting, "Shalom aleichem!" They looked startled to hear their rabbi pronounce the greeting traditionally given after returning from a long journey. "But Rabbi," they said, "we have not been anywhere!" The rabbi continued to shake hands with them, as though they were travellers arriving in Berditchev. He said, "From your faces it was obvious that your thoughts were in the grain market in Odessa or the woolen market in Lodz. None of you were actually here while you recited the prayers, so I was glad to welcome you back once you stopped." We Are Not Tenacious Around 1870 New York City had one of the most hotly contested mayor's races in its history. The incumbent was Mayor John Tweed--Boss Tweed he was called. He was running for reelection. The Boss Tweed machine represented politics at its very worst. The entire administration was corrupt to the core. A number of dedicated people decided that they were fed up with this kind of politics and the good people of the city took on the Boss Tweed element. At first they seemed to make headway. But as the campaign drug on they began to feel the pressures of machine politics. Many of these good people began to drop out. When the election was held and the results counted, to many people's disappointment, they discovered that Boss Tweed had been reelected. The next day the New York Times ran an editorial and analyzed what had happened. It said: The good people quit being good before the bad people quit being bad" Isn't that so often our dilemma. We are not tenacious. We throw up our hands in disgust. In our witnessing if we don't have instant affirmation then we throw in the towel. The same thing is true with prayer. Keeping God Alive in our Hearts Jesus prayed: forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. In the novel "The Great Hunger," a newcomer comes to a farm community. He refuses all friendship with his neighbors and puts out the no trespassing sign. One day a little child from the town climbs underneath his fence to pet his dog. The vicious animal leaps on her and kills her. Hostility spreads throughout the community. When the newcomer comes to town no one will speak to him. Clerks refuse to wait on him. Spring comes and the merchants refuse to sell him seed. Finally, the father of the girl who was killed comes over and sows his field. This act of kindness is too much for the insufferable newcomer. "Why-you of all people?" he asks. The father responds: To keep God alive in my heart. The experience of forgiveness is basic to our spiritual health. It is the way that we keep God alive in our hearts. But there is more. The petition says: Forgive us as we forgive others. In other words, we are asking God to forgive in proportion to our forgiving. We become our own judge and jury. How do we forgive the unforgivable? By remembering that God forgives us for our sins against him.