14th Sunday after Pentecost 10.9.06 Seek first the Kingdom
People often ask Almighty God for certain things. Please do this, grant that, prevent something else.
Then we find that the prayer is not always granted as we had hoped. At which point many become discouraged and lose their faith in God – either He does not exist, or He does not care, they conclude.
The Gospel today (about the birds in the air and the lilies in the field) encourages us to trust in God for every need. Why worry, Our Lord asks, when it is plain that your Father is looking after you?
He encourages us to ask for what we need, but He also gives a vital clue. To get everything we need we have to seek first the kingdom of God.
This is an essential step which is often overlooked. Many just charge in and start asking for things.
As we learn from other areas of life: when faced with a puzzle or problem we have to get to the root of the problem to solve it.
If you are struggling to turn a key in a lock, for instance. It could be the wrong key, so you could be turning all night, but the door will not open. Sometimes things unravel suddenly and with great simplicity. Ever tried to untangle a knotted cord, and it seems hopeless, then suddenly it all falls open for you?
If we get the crucial knot, the key point of the problem the rest is easy. All of life is like that, including the spiritual life.
The key point is: if we want something from God we must give Him first place in our lives. This is what seeking the Kingdom means.
We may not want to do that, but unless we do, our prayers of request will bounce back unanswered.
Thy will be done, Thy kingdom come… We say it a million times; now we have to mean it.
We really have to make that act of trust that God knows what is best for us.
We then ask simply that He put into effect whatever He wills. Sometimes it will be the same as we want; sometimes different; but always the best thing.
His will is not something to be feared. Go back to the lilies of the field. God’s will is essentially simple and straightforward. He likes to bless His creatures to the fullest possible extent.
The only complication is that sometimes to give us a greater blessing He has to withhold a lesser one.
So, for example, He might withhold a physical cure for the sake of purifying us spiritually. Or He might prevent us from getting a particular job because He knows there is something better coming down the line.
Always He is seeing and working for what is best for us.
So when we give up praying in vexation we are both insulting Him and frustrating the solutions He is working out for us.
It’s no use trying any other remedy. Like the man who had lost his wallet outside but was looking for it inside because the light was better! He was never going to find it. We can turn the wrong key in the lock all night but we we will not get in.
So: we can be asking for the wrong thing – eg to be rich without any work - blank response.
We can be asking for the right thing but in the wrong way – eg world peace but without any effort to amend our own anger – blank response.
We can be asking for the right thing and in the right way – and still not get through, because other people are blocking the result eg conversion of a sinner, and the sinner does not want to know.
We have to keep praying – just fine tune these various points – and results will come.
