You’ve heard the biblical quotation from the Book of Ecclesiastes: there is an appointed time for everything: a time to be silent, and a time to speak. Let me illustrate.
A police officer pulled a couple over for speeding. The husband told the officer: “I had the cruise control at 60.” The wife chimed in: “Sweetheart, the car doesn’t have cruise control.” The husband turned to her and said: “Would you please let me speak?”
The officer then noted: “You’re not wearing your seat belt.” The husband explained: “I had it on, but took it off when you stopped me so I could get my license.” To which the wife said: “Sweetheart, you never wear your seat belt.” As the policeman wrote a second ticket, the husband yelled at his wife: “Let me handle this!” The officer asked the woman: “Does he always shout at you?” She replied: “Only when he’s drinking?” So there’s definitely a time to be silent.
The word of God takes us to Peter at the house of Cornelius: a Gentile and, worse, an officer in the Roman army. The Romans occupied Jewish lands; periodically Jews would rebel, only to be brutally crushed by the Romans.
And as Peter proclaims God’s “amazing grace” for all people, the Spirit of God descended upon the entire household - Gentiles as well as Jews - and Peter then ordered Cornelius's household to be baptized into the community of Jesus’s disciples.
This incident reminds us that the Spirit of God works in people and in places where we least expect. So, each of us should always be alert to God’s presence, even in the most unlikely hum-drum of daily life.
The authors of the letter of John and the Gospel challenge us to love one another as God loves us: unconditionally. To love is to wish the other well. Moreover, Matthew Chapter 25 clarifies that we love God to the extent that we care for one another. Jesus gave his life for us so that we could have the gift of God’s triune life: God living in us and we in God.
Jesus chose us as friends. He invites us to nurture that friendship, especially through prayer, placing ourselves daily in the presence of God.
But how does prayer work? C.S. Lewis, a twentieth-century professor and theologian, wrote a series of letters titled The Screwtape Letters. The exchange is between a senior devil, Screwtape, and an apprentice devil, Wormwood.
Screwtape advises Wormwood how to win a soul for the devil. One method of doing that, Screwtape explains, is to create so much noise that people can no longer hear the voice of God. Does this ring true? Think about it. We awake to clock radios, watch TV, hear the car radio; check Facebook, Instagram, phones, e-mail, podcasts, etc., all of which distract us from hearing God’s voice in our lives. Sometimes we can barely hear ourselves think with all the noise around us. The devil’s strategy—keeping us from God--seems to work.
For Jesus and the heroes and heroines of Christianity, prayer was their top priority. They prayed often, quietly with God. Now prayer's a two-way street. Jesus of course is the model. He gives us guidelines that in no way replace public worship, e. g., the mass, but are essential for one’s relationship with God. Here are some guidelines.
1. Keep it real in your relationship with God. C.S. Lewis wrote, “The prayer preceding all prayers is, ‘May it be the real “I” who speaks. May it be the real “Thou” that I speak to.’” Yes, our relationship with God has to be real, authentic.
2. Keep it quiet. Jesus went up the mountain to pray. Find a place every day to pray without distraction. Jesus encourages us to find time to be alone with God so we can offload our guilt, our problems, our worries.
3. Keep it simple. Jesus admonishes us to keep our prayers simple. It is not the length that counts but the sincerity.
Jesus also taught his disciples to be persistent in prayer, to go on asking, seeking, knocking. Our heavenly Father knows what we need. And there’s a pattern to prayer, which Jesus taught us in the Our Father. Here’s a paraphrase using that pattern: Our Father: because we and God are family members, heirs to the kingdom of heaven; May Your kingdom of truth and justice and peace and freedom permeate everyone; And may Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Satisfy our basic daily needs: food, health, home, livelihood, a tranquil society. Forgive us for things we do wrong as we forgive those who wrong us. And don’t let us succumb to evils that will jeopardize our relationship with you, God. This is the pattern of prayer Jesus gave us.
Now you may wonder, does God answer our prayers? The simple answer is yes, but not always as we would like. The following meditation shows how inventive God can be:
“I asked for strength, and God gave me difficulties to make me strong.
I asked for wisdom, and God gave me problems to solve.
I asked for prosperity, and God gave me a brain and the energy to work.
I asked for courage, and God gave me dangers to overcome.
I asked for love, and God gave me troubled people to help.
I received nothing I wanted, but I received everything I needed.”
Yes, God has chosen us to be his friends. How nurture that friendship? Through prayer, conversing with God as we would with a friend, a friendship based on God's unconditional love for us, his unconditional forgiveness and unconditional acceptance of us.
Sometimes we isolate prayer to “church” at particular times. We almost subconsciously remove God from our “day-to-day stuff.” But God is in all of life: in moments of joy, in times of sadness, in the nitty-gritty of daily work, and in times of doubt and disappointment. That's why we have to look continually beneath and beyond the appearances of daily life and try to see the reality of God all around us.
So today we might want to:
Take time to think, it’s the source of power;
Take time to play, it’s the secret of perpetual youth.
Take time to read, it’s the fountain of wisdom.
Take time to pray, it’s the greatest power on earth.
Take time to love and be loved, it’s a God-given privilege.
Take time to be friendly, it’s the road to happiness.
Take time to laugh, it’s the muse of the soul.
Take time to give, it’s too short a day to be selfish.
Take time to work, it’s the price of success.
Yes, God chose us to be his friends; nurture that friendship daily in prayer; place ourselves in the presence of God and make everything we do, even the nitty-gritty of daily life, a prayer.
