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PRAYER FOR THE WEEK
Jesus, help me trust that you know the kind of help I need! Amen.

Jesus taught His disciples a story to help them remember to pray: "A woman went to a judge over and over again to help her win a case in court. The judge finally decided, 'She'll bother me forever unless I help her!' So he did. Just like that judge, won't God help you when you ask over and over? I tell you, God will help."

People expect a lot of God - and get very upset if God doesn't seem to deliver. You pray for a dog or that your parents won't divorce, and if you don't get the result you want, you wonder if there's any point to praying. You wonder if God cares about you.

This week's Gospel (Luke 18:1-8) says that God does care - but doesn't operate by our rules. Jesus talks about a woman involved in a lawsuit. She wants to win, so she bugs the judge until he helps her. The story is really about us bugging God to help us, praying for the results we want.

What Jesus doesn't say is how the judge helps. The judge could have made sure the woman won her case, but he also could have helped her see that suing someone wasn't worth the bother. He could have seen that what she really needed was money to live on, and given her some of his own. He could have just been a listening ear when she was upset.

When we pray, it's like the woman and the judge. We can ask for exactly what we want, but that doesn't mean things will turn out that way. God doesn't force unhappy parents to stay together or make your family get a dog. Praying means asking and trusting that God will help - but not deciding how God will help.

The judge in Jesus' story probably saw the woman's problems more clearly than she could. God understands our problems better than we do. Never stop praying, because God does care - so much that you may get a kind of help you didn't even ask for. [[In-content Ad]]

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