Prayers and Patience

It is time to develop relationships with a common sympathy and interest in fairness and social justice. Mercy and forgiveness should be easily and honestly shared. We should move towards being loving and compassionate. Our hope should be extended beyond any slef-serving goals. Envy and greed, uncontrolled, can lead us away from God. Any separation can lead to all types of afflictions and fears. We must always remember decency and morality. Our lives require a foundation of love, peace, compassion, and hope. Even I cannot know all things that need our prayers; but God knows, and it does please Him to hear our prayers for each other. We must always remember and respect all the blessings that He gave. And we must make time to read and understand the Bible; we must make our lives be right since we are all his servants! Indeed we must expect both great grief and magnificent contentment! Prayer can help us to be better Christians and better human beings when we allow ourselves to believe in the majesty and beauty of God. Love often surrounds me; prayers help me feel closer to God; but I should not then deny the consolation of praying and then remembering to pray for all those in need of God’s mercy and love.

It is both reasonable and acceptable to speak now of our prayers, and circumstances which have been compelled us to pray. We must believe that God’s responses will arrive unquestionably at the appropriate moment according to God’s precepts; the responses will correspond to his plan, his idea of what we need; we must wait patiently, obediently and accept his responses with humility and grace; above all we must believe that his responses are filled with love, compassion, and mercy. We are all his children. We are all alive and well. Our hopes, our dreams have been composed by God—our Father is quietly supporting us with his own forgiveness, his own love, his own patience. He asks that we develop loving fortitude. He asks for our humility, charity, and obedience. He waits for our response. His love and concern for us is an inexpressible comfort to many who bear witness to his goodness and wisdom. God is our comfort. God offers salvation if we simply, lovingly obey him.

I cannot say that being obedient shall always be easy for us; obedience will be very difficult for us at times and we will be filled with all types of rationalizations, justifications and other shoddy reasons and fallacies allowing all types of resistance thoughts and actions. God knows and expects this; we must learn it if we are to follow in Christ’s footsteps. Always remember that God is always glad to see you, to hear your prayers. The weather is never too dreary or too humid for him to listen and we are never too far from him: and when you pray, be honest as you open your heart and soul to him; enjoy your prayers; enjoy the silence; pray often; and listen with calmness and quiet in your mind. God’s answer can take many forms and can occur at any moment. Perhaps we are ready to hear and understand it; perhaps we are not. We must have patience. It might be better if we were less concerned with earthly temporal matters which can make us selfish, distract and divert our love, goodness, and holiness. Within each of us is the capacity for being humble, loving, forgiving like God if we are able to overcome our insecurities and fears long enough to do what he asks—but we must always pray! Words cannot adequately express the regard and esteem that God presents to us each day of our lives. We receive his tenderness, his watchfulness. I can never forget God’s love for us or how unworthy I do feel because of my selfishness, my pettiness. I believe that I have felt God’s presence every hour and minute of my life—my memory is filled with reading and reciting Bible verses, hearing and saying prayers, seeing the wonders and beauty of nature. Building a good relationship with God is more precious to me than any earthly blessing; I have prayed for myself and I have prayed for others and I remind myself not to worry, not to want an immediate response; and yet, what I should feel, and how I should pray, remain as sweet variables, sweet daily lessons teaching me humility, obedience, charity; but I did just now remember that I have so much left learn about how to love as God wants us to love.