On Prayer

Back in pre-school, I beheaded a ninja turtle while playing with it. Scared of the teacher's punishment, I broke her strict rule that all toys should be returned after playing but instead I smuggled it home and tried to fix it to no avail. In my final act of desperation I prayed so hard to God to fix it, but the next day I cried my heart out because it was still broken.

I felt that God abandoned me.

Still crying in school my teacher comforted me and gave me a new ninja turtle to play with for she saw that I had a headless toy.

If God answered what I prayed for and mystically put back on Leonardo's head, I would have been punished for not returning the toy or I might have been accused of stealing.

Also, it is our human tendency to pray to God when we exhausted all our options, while we could have avoided all the troubles we made if we just went to Him first.

I realized the power of prayer very young as a child, when my faith was at its greatest because I have nothing but to depend on God. As the years went by and the prayerful child in me was lost along the way.

When things started to go wrong, I worked hard to make it right only to do more damage. I have failed to see that prayer is essential in the things that we do for it gives us a higher purpose. So I looked for it, only to find that it has always been there, waiting for me to humble myself before God.

Prayer is very powerful, it inspires, it protects, it moves us. The lack thereof, misguides us and weakens us.

Keep on praying for God hears them, and in many instances our human capacity fails us to understand the ways of the Divine, and times that we do not know what we ask for, but worry not for God is omniscient and I am assured that no matter how it will be, our prayers will always be answered.

So before doing anything else, let's pray first.

"And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive." Matthew 21:22