Thursday
5th March 2020. Read Esther 14:1-14, Psalm 138 and Matthew 7:7-12.
_“If you then,
who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will
your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!.” *(Matthew 7:11)*_
Prayer can be summed up in the very
word Jesus used in our Gospel passage today: “ASK”; A - ask, S – seek, K -
knock. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds and to him who
knocks it will be opened. In this way, Jesus highlights the importance of faith
and trust when we pray.
Believe that you will get what you
ask for even before you start praying. Jesus draws an analogy with a child
asking his father for bread or fish saying that if we who are evil can be trusted
to give our children what they ask for, how much more, God. To remind us that
God is really a Father, Jesus taught us to begin our prayer with “Our Father
who art in heaven.”
Our first reading today presents an
example of one woman who prayed very well; Queen Esther. There was a difficult
situation at hand, her people (the whole nation of Israel who were exiled at
this time in a foreign land) were at the brink of extermination. A bill was
about to be passed from the King’s palace to kill all the Israelites. She too
would have been killed so she went to God.
Esther displayed great confidence in
God. She was the wife of the King but at the same time, she did not rely on her
position as wife, she did not think she could simply lure the king by her
beauty or charm, she knew she was nothing without God. She prayed before
embarking on a visit to the King.
The prayer of Esther teaches us that
there is a difference between asking and complaining. While asking is done with
a disposition of love and humility towards God, complaining is expressing our
bitterness to God without faith in His ability to grant our requests. Prayer is
always optimistic but complaining is highly pessimistic.
God was angry with the Israelites in
the desert because they complained instead of praying. The Israelites allowed
their hunger to get into them so much so that they said, they wished they had died
in the hands of the Egyptians. They quickly forgot what God had done for them
in the past. When we pray, it is important to remind ourselves of what God has
done, Jesus taught us to start our prayer with praise. In this way, we would
not be tempted to relapse into mere complaining.
Secondly, there a great difference
between asking and commanding. Esther was the Queen of Israel yet before she
opened her mouth to pray, she brought herself low by lying on the bare earth
from morning till night. Do you want to pray well? Forget who you are, bring
yourself down to the position of a beggar; ask, seek and knock.
Let us pray: Lord Jesus, strengthen
and deepen my prayer life. Amen.
*Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith.
It is well with you. God bless you. (Thursday of the 1st Week of Lent. Bible Study: Esther 14:1-14,
Psalm 138 and Matthew 7:7-12).*
Fr. Abu
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