"Prayer is communication and communion with God." So I shared and taught those in my Bible Study Classes and those in close contact with me. I truly believe this to be a very if not the most important thing in life. Life is naught without a relationship with God, from whom all good things come. In the course of our learning the Bible together, I had the opportunity to share what I read about what others say about prayer. One of which is 'pray in a manner as if only God can help you but also work with all that is within you power as if no one else can help you except you'. Now , does that statement bear contradictory messages? So I think of the prayers of the Hebrew people held as slaves in Egypt; God heard their cries; God called Moses and told him that He heard the cries of the people; Moses was to be answer to the people's cries, part of the answer, of course. I thought of fasting and prayer of the people who faced the threat of total culling and I think of Queen Esther- who became part of the answer to the people's prayer and fasting. I think of Daniel daily prayers and I also think of his making his stand not to partake in the what he believed to be God-betraying activities. These are some examples we read and see the 'connection' between prayer, our decision and action. More than not, we read of prayer to God coupled with our initiative and/or action. This is our faith- trusting God and trusting God to give us the resources to do that which is within our power to do what we believe is God-honouring.
How do we feel about what is happening in our country? The diminishing respect for the laws. The alarming increase of crimes including heinous crimes which suggests connection with those in power (the Mongolian model case); the demolishment of the homes of the people (the Kampung Beremban squatters' plight), the 'how to spend RM600M in 6 weeks'(by the PM, Malaysiakini 29 Nov), the judiciary which has lost its independence, and the list goes on. How may we relate our prayers to what is happening right at our doorstep (apart from what is happening in our designated 'mission fields').
May we consider how on the one hand,we may pray with all our heart as if only God will save our country of the mess of the growing lawlesslness and injustice and on the other, do all that is within our power to do what we can to save our country? Malaysian church is faced with an acute challenge to respond. Our silence sometimes can be so loud, loud with her message of indifference or irrelevance or timidity/fear. What do you think? Perhaps for some of us, our prayer which moves us closer to the heart of God must move us to do something about what we see to be wrong. Perhaps as a church, representative of God's presence in our society, our prayer needs to take the form of our acknowledging the wrongs and injustice in our society. Perhaps for some of us who are in places of influence to teach and make known the truths about the wrongs that we see. Perhaps our prayer needs to take the form of taking the side and helping those who have suffered oppression without fear.
True prayers bring us close to the heart of God, One who hears the cries of the oppressed; One who detests injustice and corruption, thereby, compels us to do something with our attitude towards the oppressed and powerless, compels us to action.
Sunday 3 December 2006
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3 comments:
great blog, really interesting stuff!!
Very deep insight on prayer & v.challenging application in daily life.Provoked a lot of thots but no clear answers. Wonder how to respond in midst of other responsibilities to work, family & church. Of course, in a limited way, these are my 'mission fields', but who will be the one person whom God can call to lead. As someone said, ( was it George Bernard Shaw? ), all great movements in history was led by 1 person chosen by God. I also see PM Abdullah trying to moderate the extremists in Umno & wonder how to support him without supporting his other Umno problematic people.
I heard a S’pore priest once shared in his pre-Christmas homily, that he has this little Christmas tree on his office table throughout the year. To him, everyday is Christmas!
Dim and stark as the coming year may seem to hold, I’d still want to hang on to the fact that there is hope. And I think He’d always hold out something for the ‘hopefuls’ (like me) or as the world might taunt the ‘hopefools’, if we are willingly persevering to hang on in there, with Him as our strength. Isn’t He a God of surprises? All may seem lost, like when He obeyed to the end on that cross … yet, He triumphs. Was Paul foolish to say, “For me to live is Christ, to die is gain.”? May God have mercy and grant us that grace.
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