On my blog during the next few days I will be sharing some thoughts on Prayer, Suffering and Joy!

God is faithful and God can be trusted!  Do you believe that?

Someone wrote me a few months ago asking about Prayer Suffering. 

Here is my response, “Dear_____,

Thank you for your letter, which I have summed up in two questions, 

1. Why do people suffer, 

2. Why do we pray?

These may appear to be simple questions on the surface, but they are really quite profound.  I think the first thing you want to consider is why you pray?

Do you pray to get what you want?

Do you pray to know what God wants? 

Do you pray to build and strengthen your relationship with God?  I suggest that the primary purpose of praying to is build and strengthen your relationship with God, so you can discover His will for your life and follow it.”   

Suffering is at its essence a mystery; we can know something about suffering, but not the entire picture.  We don’t understand why there is pain and suffering in the world, but Jesus taught us what to do with our pain and suffering.  

 

Offer our pain and suffering to God, the Father and ask Him to bless it and have good come from it.  What we do with our suffering helps us grow or weighs us down.  St. Francis de Sales taught us, “Do not look forward to the changes and chances of this life with fear; rather look upon them with strong hope that, as they arise, God, whose child you are, will deliver you from them.”

 

Begin each day TRUSTING in God, live each moment in that TRUST, and allow TRUSTING God’s WILL to RUN your life and then you will live as a child of God.  Easy to write, easy to say, but very hard to live.

“Let nothing disturb you; Let nothing frighten you. 

All things are passing. 

God never changes. 

Patience obtains all things.  Nothing is wanting to him who possesses God.  Go alone suffices.”  (St. Francis de Sales)

I hope these insights help you to remember to pray for the strength to follow God’s will, not to change God’s mind, or get God to do what you what; but to pray for the strength to accept what comes your way as from the hand of God.  Thank God for the Good offer up the hardships and crosses to God; ask Him to bless them and have good come from them.

In Jesus Love,

Deacon George

May God Be Praised!