WHY DON’T WE ALWAYS GET WHAT WE PRAY FOR?
Monday of the Seventh Week in Ordinary Time
My dear encountered couples:
Even though they tried the disciples were unable to expel the evil spirit from this boy. That should help to console us. There are a lot of things we try to do but don’t seem to be able to bring off. Jesus told them that this kind of evil can only be driven out by prayer. But we pray, don’t we? We pray for healing, for cures, for return to good health. And sometimes they happen, sometimes they don’t. Is the reason because we do not pray well enough? Is it that we don’t have strong enough faith?
Why is it that when we pray for a loved one to be cured of cancer or saved from death after a serious accident, we don’t always get the answer we want from our prayers?
I’ll be frank with you. I cannot give an answer that will satisfy you. We look at everything from a human perspective, God sees them from a divine. We live in time, God lives in eternity. We focus on what is physical and temporary, God focuses on what is spiritual and endless. We view death as the end of life, God views death as the beginning of an even better one. As for suffering we see little purpose for it, and though God doesn’t enjoy our undergoing any, he makes it work for the needed benefit of all who trust him. We may see no benefit from trials in this life, but we will in the next.
The possessed boy’s father received the exact results he wanted, and we will at times too, but when we don’t that’s when we are being offered the choice to grow in our faith or let it weaken.
Much we don’t understand, and never will during this life, but since God’s wisdom is far above and beyond ours, while we pray our hardest for the results we want let us trust that whatever God decides is best for us all.
