Honesty in Prayer
As if prayer could be anything but honest…however I am certain I am not the only one who has been foolish enough to think that I could withhold something from Christ. If I don’t bring it up, perhaps we can just skip that part of my life, while I pray on these other matters.
What do we withhold from Christ? In our pride, we may withhold praying for those who hurt us; failing to forgive someone. How do we expect that Christ will answer our prayer before we have truly humbled ourselves and forgiven those who have hurt us?
This is the key; it is once we have humbled ourselves that we can be truly honest in our prayer.
Remember, Christ already knows our thoughts, our words, and our actions. Most importantly He knows our hearts, if we want to truly be close to Him we have to first of all, guard our words and our thoughts, change our hearts, and act always in a spirit of charity, which is love in action.
This calls to mind a story I regularly share with my boys, written by L.J. Sattgast. A story about a boy who is working with his Grandpa in the garden, the boy plants seeds on ground that is filled with rocks. Of course, the flowers do not grow, no matter how much he waters them. So his Grandpa assists him to remove the rocks. In a few days, the garden begins to form with healthy plants & flowers. In the same way, we must remove rocks in our hearts. We form rocks in our hearts when we allow pride to set in, when we don’t’ forgive others, when we judge others, when we are not sincere with Christ.
St. Teresa of Avila said it best “ Pride is when we compare ourselves to others, humility is when we compare ourselves to God” Let us pray that we see ourselves as God does, that we be continually humbled by His presence and His unfailing love for us. Pray that we will treat pride as the poison that is to our souls, that we will continually strive to be rid of pride. Keep our sinfulness always before us Lord, that we may not fall into pride, that we will always approach You with a humble and sincere heart, in order that You may work through our flawed humanity to bring others to know Your love and mercy. Amen
Image: St. Theresa of Avila (1515-82) 1570 by Juan de la Miseria
