The Generosity of God

Today's QT passage: Luke 11:1-13

1. One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”
2. He said to them, “When you pray, say: “Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come.
3. Give us each day our daily bread.
4. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.’ “
5. Then he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and he goes to him at midnight and says, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread,
6. because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him.’
7.“Then the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children are with me in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’
8. I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man’s boldness he will get up and give him as much as he needs.
9.“So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
10. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
11.“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead?
12. Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?
13. If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”


Reflection:

Whenever I read this passage it reminds me of how distorted my view of prayer can become. Prayer so often seems like a chore, almost like making your bed or taking out the trash. I often think of prayer as "checking in" with God and as a gauge of how "spiritual" I am being. But prayer is not that. What I always found interesting was that after having spent all that time with Jesus, they still had to ask him how to pray. Obviously there was something different about how Jesus was praying. It wasn't just some rote memorization or prayers written down on some scroll. It was a personal prayer that wasn't memorized or recited. The "Lord's Prayer" wasn't necessarily meant for us to just memorize verbatim, but serves as a template for the things we should pray about in our personal prayers:

1) Acknowledge God's holiness and majesty
2) Pray that His will will be done and is being done on earth
3) Be thankful for what He has provided us
4) Confess our sins and ask for forgiveness
5) Ask for power against temptations/Satan
6) Intercessory prayer

Even though we often feel like we "don't know how to pray", Jesus tells us how to do it. Whenever we "forget", we should come back to this passage and remind ourselves.

What's also interesting is that the example Jesus gives about asking for things is not for the person who is asking but for a guest of the asker. In other words, when we ask for things, God will almost always grant our prayer when it's intercessory in nature. And my personal experience has definitely shown this to be true. When we pray for others, things seem to happen a lot more quickly than when I have prayed for things myself. This reminds me of the old story/visual of how people in heaven eat: everyone's chopsticks/spoons/forks are super long, so that if you tried to feed yourself, it would be impossible because you couldn't reach your mouth; rather, the way to eat is to feed the other people around the table with your extra-long utensils. Therefore, the quickest way to get our prayers answered is to share our prayers and pray for others. I think this "filters" our requests to those that really are aligned with God's will, since you wouldn't necessarily share a request that is selfish ("God, give me a million dollars"). But this also puts an enormous responsibility on every pray-er (one who prays), as requests will be granted if we only actually pray. Not praying for someone would be like someone asking you to feed them but you choosing not to do so. Let's not let anyone go hungry...

I TAG: Jenny Yi