The faith journey

Today, I am directing a retreat at UW-River Falls, WI. The theme of the retreat is “Sometimes you have to go to Jerusalem as a Christian.”  The Scripture reading chosen for today’s reflection is 1 Kings 17: 7-16.  Drought has ravished the land. The Lord says to Elijah: “Up and go to Zarephath in Sidonia, and stay there. I have ordered a widow there to give you food.” As Elijah enters the city, he meets a widow gathering sticks to prepare a last meal for her son and herself before they die.  She is asked to share the little she has with Elijah. She is hesitant. Elijah tells her that Yahweh has promised that the “[j]ar of meal shall not be spent, the jug of oil shall not be emptied, before the day when Yahweh sends rain on the face of the earth.”  She does as Elijah suggested and, lo and behold, the “jar of meal was not spent nor the jug of oil emptied, just  as Yahweh had foretold through Elijah.”

 When you and I think we have absolutely nothing to share or  we are at the end of our rope, there are no more choices left to make, we want to give up totally or simply lie down and die, the Lord says: “Up and go. Don’t just sit here.  Don’t give up.  I have ordered so and so to meet your need, to restore you to life, but you have got to be willing to work  for it. You have got to be willing to leave your “poverty” and seek the more from those who can assist you.

The journey to fullness of life always  involves a dying, a letting go, a  giving and a receiving. If we cling to what is when what is is no longer life-giving—the well has run dry, so to speak-- if we wallow in self-pity, we will continue to feel famished, unmotivated, stuck. On the other hand,  if  we assume responsibility in “finding the widow” in relocating to another “place,” be that a physical move or a psychological/spiritual move, following  Elijah’s example, we will thrive in God’s goodness and grow in our trust of Divine Providence.  The faith journey is learning over and over again to trust God’s invitations to get “up and go to ‘Zaraphat in Sidonia’” or to give of the little we have to help others even when we think we have nothing to give.    

Persistent Knocking, Seeking, Finding

In today’s Gospel,  Luke 11:5-13, Jesus challenges us to be persistent in our praying. He gives the example of a person who, at midnight, goes to his friend’s house asking for bread to share with one of his friends who, unexpectedly, it seems, arrived at his house at midnight.  “I have nothing to offer him,” he says.  Imagine this friend refusing to give him anything, saying “Do not bother me; the door has already been locked and my children and I are already in bed. I cannot get up to give you anything.”  But the needy friend is persistent and keeps knocking.  Jesus suggests that it may not be the friendship that prompts the positive response but the persistence. How persistent am I when I ask God for a favor?

More confusing, perhaps, to the person who has prayed and prayed and prayed and nothing, supposedly, happened is Jesus’ next statement:  “…ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”  So how does one explain this to someone whose prayers seem to go unanswered?

When I was a teenager, I prayed and prayed and prayed that my mother would not die and she did! I still do not have an answer to why God allowed a mother of six children to die of cancer when four of those children were still in grade school. I went through some very trying times, as her death was followed by other family tragedies with no one able to empathize with me, as they had not known such tragedies in their own lives.  Battling an onslaught of anxiety and panic attacks and having fallen into a deep depression during those difficult years, I learned to pray as a child—even had temper tantrums with God, expressing my anger toward Him. God confided to me that it was not He who had trouble with my anger but that I was the one who was bothered by it.  God and I grew very close, as He opened His arms and heart to me in overwhelming ways throughout the years, as I became more and more honest with Him about my feelings and what I was thinking and what I needed from Him that no one else could possibly give me. Yes, I learned to trust the Lord and rely upon Him. I would not trade that relationship with anything in the world!  God, I believed, answered my prayer as my mother intercedes for me and my siblings in ways that have produced miracles in all of our lives.