How often do we sell God short in minimizing the effect of our prayer or actions?

St. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians declares, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work in us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus.”  (Eph. 3:20-21) Paul is praising Jesus for doing more in and through us than we can ever imagine if we will only rely on him in our prayers and actions with the people and circumstances in our lives.

After experiencing a personal encounter with Jesus and the renewal of my Catholic faith in my late 30’s, I shared my experience with Pete, a work colleague and friend.  We had worked together a couple of years on a few projects and then he moved on to become a vice president in our company.  While we saw each other occasionally, we didn’t work together after that point. 

Fifteen years later he called me one day and asked if I could come up to his office.  It turns out that he had been diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer and was given about six weeks to live.  He was very distraught and lamented that because of his work, he had not spent much time with his daughters while they were growing up.  After listening for a while, I asked if I could pray with him.  He said yes.  I walked around his desk, put a hand on his shoulder, and prayed that God would bless his remaining weeks and give him some special time with his daughters and wife.  His wife shared with me at his funeral that he did indeed do that, and it was a blessing for Pete and all of them in spite of his eventual death.

We never know what God is going to do with our witness.  Fifteen years had passed since I related my story of meeting Jesus in a new way with Pete, but he still called me to share his personal crisis and his anguish over not spending more time with his family in recent years.  As St. Paul says, God can do immeasurably more than we can imagine with our words and actions.  May we reach out as the Holy Spirit leads us in sharing God’s presence with others.   

Do you sell God short, or do you have faith that he will act on your words and actions according to his good purpose?     

How often do you find yourself getting so caught up in what you are doing that you don’t think about asking God for his assistance? 

While I may start my day by asking for the Lord’s blessing and spending some time with him in prayer, as the day progresses I get caught up in whatever I am doing and totally forget to bring him into what is confronting me or ask for his help.  This may be particularly true if I consider the task I am facing important or has a deadline. 

Just the other day, I received a letter from one of the airlines that they had suspended my miles program because my “email had been compromised.”  I had no indication that there was any problem with my email account.  Instead of stopping to bring the Lord into the situation and asking for his help in guiding my next steps, I hurriedly searched for the phone number of my email provider, which I had difficulty locating.  After multiple efforts I finally found someone who said they could check for me.  After a lengthy period, they concluded that they could not find any indication of a problem. 

Next I called the airline to inform them that the email provider found no evidence of a compromise, but they still had me go through a lengthy process of providing an ID update to reinstate the account.  Only toward the end of that conversation did I realize that I had never sought the Lord’s presence to give me wisdom in how to resolve the problem with his peace. 

St. Paul encourages us to “Pray continuously, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” (1 Th. 5:17) In another letter he says, “The Lord is near.  Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”  (Phil. 4:6-7) 

Years ago, I read a book entitled Practicing the Presence of God, by Brother Lawerance.  His premise was that in all things we should be aware God’s presence and bring him into every moment of our lives. 

Perhaps we could make it a habit to let our minds and thoughts continuously communicate with God.  Moment by moment, we can let God be our continuous companion asking him what we should do or say next. 

“Why are you sleeping?” Jesus asked. “Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.”  (Luke 22:46 NIV)

After the Last Supper when Jesus and the disciples retired to the Mount of Olives, Jesus suggested that the disciples should pray so that they would not fall into temptation. He then withdrew to pray by himself.  Meanwhile, the disciples were not praying as he suggested but had fallen asleep.  He chastises them for sleeping and not praying.  We know what happened next; they succumbed to the temptation of fear, and all of them scattered, abandoning Jesus at his arrest.

Jesus’ antidote for temptation is not complicated.  It is simply prayer. In his suggested form of prayer to his disciples and to us, the final petition is, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” (Mt. 6:13)

Jesus invites us to pray just as he did the disciples.  He invites us to begin our day with him and the Father. He knows that we will not be able to withstand the temptations we face each day without prayer.  Yet, how often do we choose a little more sleep instead of prayer at the beginning of our day? 

Prayer nurtures our relationship with Jesus and the Father.  The temptations we face are many and varied — getting angry when things don’t go our way; engaging in negative humor at the expense of others; flirting with a co-worker; overstating an item on an expense account; telling the boss what he wants to hear instead of the truth; getting short with our spouse; or not spending time with our children at the end of a busy day.

One of my more frequent temptations is to get impatient with a store clerk or the person on a help desk when they do not seem to meet my expectations.  When I don’t pray, my response is often disproportionate to the problem at hand.  When I do pray, I am reminded to be patient and kind. 

With each temptation that Satan threw at Jesus at the beginning of his ministry, Jesus countered with a scripture that refuted Satan’s premise for the temptation. (Mt. 4:1-11) Prayer and scripture are weapons Jesus gives us against temptation and the efforts of Satan.  St. Paul describes them as part of the armor of God. (Eph. 6:12-18) To these, the Church adds the sacraments of reconciliation and the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.

How do you protect yourself against temptation?

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  (Mark 12:30-31)

These are the words of Jesus in response to a scribe who asked what the most important commandment was.  Loving God and the people he puts in our lives with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength was his answer.  It is a consuming task.  It impacts every facet and moment of our lives.

In Old Testament times, the idols people worshiped included false gods and their images.  Today, our idols include entertainers, professional athletes, public officials, hobbies, careers, material things like cars, homes, jewelry, retirement accounts, etc. None of these are inherently wrong in themselves, but they can become idols if we make them so.

In the early years of our marriage and right after the Kansas City Chiefs had won Super Bowl IV, we were able to get season tickets as the Chiefs were moving from their old stadium into the larger Arrowhead stadium.  At first it was exciting, but it grew to become a project every Sunday, on which there was a home game, taking nearly the whole day with time for transportation, traffic, parking, etc. We had to get a babysitter for our young daughters for nearly the whole day.  In addition to the time, it also became rather costly.  

I had acquired an idol, a professional football team.  It became a detriment and a distraction to my love and responsibilities to my family.  There is nothing inherently wrong with being a fan of a professional football team, but when it detracts from loving your spouse and young family, and expressing your love for God on Sunday, I was in danger of creating and serving an idol over more important relationships and responsibilities – God and family. 

The people of Israel seemed to suffer from this tendency when the Bible reports in 2 Kings: 17:41, “Even while these people were worshiping the Lord, they were serving their idols.”  This eventually led to their exile in 722 BC, by the king of Assyria.    

Do you have idols that distract from your love of God and the people he has put in your life?     

How much do we connect our work with God?  In a seminar on faith and work which I attended a few years ago, most of the people in my small group of twelve said that they never thought of their work as having anything to do with God or their faith. 

Our increasingly secular culture would like to keep God and faith confined to Sundays and inside church buildings.  But that was never God’s intention.  He tells us at the beginning of Genesis, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work and take care of it.” (Genesis 2:15, NIV) God created us in his image and likeness and put us in the garden of his creation to “work and take care of it.” 

The Second Vatican Council said, “This split between the faith which many profess and their daily lives deserves to be counted as one of the more serious errors of our age.”  In commenting on this condition, St. John Paul II said, “A faith that does not affect a person’s culture is a faith not fully embraced, not entirely thought out, not faithfully lived.”

We had a legal secretary where I worked who talked a lot about her Christian faith in the office.  But when she was being counseled about her poor performance in serving the attorneys assigned to her, she indignantly proclaimed, “I don’t serve anyone but God!”  She was obviously confused about what serving God entailed — that we serve God and take care of his creation when we bring his presence into our work, seeking to bring his love, truth and excellence to our jobs and the people and circumstances of our workplaces.

James Hunter, in his book, To Change the World, says that the “great commission” has long been viewed geographically in terms of sending missionaries to faraway places.  But the great commission can also be interpreted in terms of the church going into all realms of social structure, including the workplace in whatever form it takes.  He says, “When the church does not send people out to these realms and when it does not provide the theologies that make sense of work and engagement, the church fails to fulfill the charge to ‘go into all the world.’”   

We serve God and take care of his creation when we do our jobs to the best of our ability no matter how significant or insignificant we may view them.  We are acting in God’s plan for us when we bring his presence, truth, love, and excellence into the conduct of our jobs. 

How do you view your work?