“To pray without expectation is to misunderstand the whole concept of
prayer and relationship with God.”—Aiden Wilson Tozer
***
Sixteen years ago, an email was disseminated globally, requesting prayers for the Philippines. “Prayer is our only hope,” stated Father James Reuter, S.J., the author of the forwarded message.
Father Reuter was an American Jesuit Catholic priest who had resided in the Philippines since the age of 22 and served as a teacher at Ateneo de Manila University. He was a prominent public figure, recognized as a writer, director, and producer across theatre, radio, print, and film. He was a significant figure in the opposition to the two-decade regime of President Ferdinand Marcos and played a crucial role in the 1986 People Power Revolution that led to Marcos’s ousting.
The impetus for the priest’s writing stemmed from then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s evaluation of the country’s condition at that time: “Our republic has become one of the weakest, steadily left behind by its more progressive neighbors.”
“Forty years ago, we were only second to Japan in economic stature, and way ahead of Singapore, Hongkong, Malaysia, and Thailand,” Father Reuter wrote. “Today, at our present growth rate, it will take us 30 years to get to where Thailand is today.”
He also noted, “We will be competing, not against Thailand or even Vietnam, but against Bangladesh.” Can you imagine that?
Another reason: “We will be the most corrupt nation in Asia, if not in the world.” At the time it was written, the Philippines was already ranked 11th among the most corrupt countries in the world by Transparency International.
“The signs are clear,” Father Reuter claimed. “Our nation is headed towards an irreversible path of economic decline and moral decadence.”
So many efforts have been made already but they were not enough. “We need a force far greater than our collective efforts, as a people, can ever hope to muster. It is time to move the battle to the spiritual realm. It’s time to claim God’s promise of healing the land for His people. It’s time to gather God’s people on its knees to pray for the economic recovery and moral reformation of our nation.”
The Bible states: “If My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sins, and will heal their land” (II Chronicles 7:14).
“More things are wrought by prayer than the world dreams of,” someone once said. “Love to pray,” urges Nobel Peace Prize winner Mother Teresa. “Feel often during the day the need for prayer and take trouble to pray. Prayer enlarges the heart until it is capable of containing God’s gift of Himself. Ask and seek and your heart will grow big enough to receive Him.”
“Prayer is not an old woman’s idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action,” Mahatma Gandhi said. The prophet Muhammad also said, “The key of paradise is prayer, and the key of prayer is ablution.”
One of the great business leaders in the United States is J. Arthur Rank. And he believes in prayer. He has an elevator straight up to his office, but he does not use it. He prefers the stairs and calls them his “prayer stairs.”
In the morning as he walks up, he prays, asking God to guide him in every step he takes that day. As he takes each step separately and deliberately, he prays. He finally arrives at the top in more ways than one.
Don’t know how to pray? Well, you can learn a lesson or two from the little girl. A grandfather passed his granddaughter’s room one night and overheard her repeating the alphabet in an oddly reverent way. “What on earth are you up to?” he asked.
“I’m saying my prayers,” explained the little girl. “But I can’t think of exactly the right words tonight, so I’m just saying all the letters. God will put them together for me, because He knows what I am thinking.”
Will that prayer be answered? Robert Schuller said there are four answers God can give to a prayer: “When the request is not right, God says, ‘No.’ When you are not right, God says, ‘Grow.’ When the time is not right, God says “Slow.’ When everything is right, God says, ‘Go.'”
Don’t ever question the power of prayer. “None can believe how powerful prayer is, and what it is able to effect, but those who have learned it by experience,” Martin Luther pointed out. “It is a great matter when in extreme need to take hold of prayer. I know, whenever I have prayed earnestly, that I have been amply heard, and have obtained more than I prayed for. God indeed sometimes delayed, but at last He came.”
Perhaps one of the best prayers ever written was the one penned by Saint Francis of Assisi. “Lord, make me a channel of thy peace. That where there is hatred, I may bring love. That where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness. That where there is discord, I may bring harmony. That where there is error, I may bring truth. That where there is doubt, I may bring faith. That where there is despair, I may bring hope. That where there are shadows, I may bring light. That where there is sadness, I may bring joy.
“Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort, than to be comforted. To understand, than to be understood. To love, than to be loved. For it is by giving the one receives; it is by self-forgetting that one finds; it is by forgiving that one is forgiven. It is by drying that one awakens to eternal life.”
