“So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.” Luke 11:9-10

My parents were very private about their spirituality. We were a Roman Catholic household, but unlike most, we were practicing. My father never taught us to say grace before our meals instead he muttered something under his breath followed by a sign of the Cross. My mother did something similar. The rest of us would wait patiently without knowing what to do. We never prayed before we went to bed. My father would wait for us to fall asleep then he would come into our room and say a silent prayer. I used to observe him secretly. My mother prayed three times days using a prayer book. I always assumed it was a Roman Catholic one. I did not know for sure because it was in a language but I could not read. Soon after my mother passed away, I looked at the book and realized that it was actually the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. My mother was a closet Anglican. The most bizarre thing is that the book belonged to my friend’s father who was a priest in the Anglican Church. It is still a mystery how this book ended up in my mother’s hands.

Despite the silence over matters spiritual in my household, there was always an interest in prayer. I imitated my father. I would wait for him to sleep and the mimic his actions. As a result, since young, I was the last one who went to bed, a habit which still persists today. I did not know what I was doing. I just mimicked my father’s actions. Then I discovered that prayers were asking God for things. This changed everything. There were lots of things I wanted. I made a list of things for God but was very quickly disappointed. I remember one of them was randomly finding money in the streets so that I could buy all the sweets and whatever I desired then. The only thing that came of this is that till today I am always looking at the ground when I walk. Eventually I gave up on personal prayers. I recited the liturgy fervently in church every Sunday but I never felt any true connection whenever I prayed.

Later on I had a strong spiritual encounter which some might term as being born again. I do not particularly like the term in its common usage. I believe in being born again as a life long process and not one particular moment in our lives. Unfortunately, I could not say that my understanding of prayer improved and matured after this encounter. I went back to the old way of praying albeit a little less self-centered. Unfortunately, in my renewed enthusiasm of all things spiritual, I had the misfortune to stumble upon pathetic Christian literature which taught prayers as a formula for getting God to give what you desire, may it be a nice car or job etc. The authors were associated with the so-called prosperity theology. Prayer became a means to an end. It went from asking something from God humbly to demanding it as my right. I am grateful that it never really worked for me. Whatever I asked I did not receive, the things I sought were not found, the doors I knocked remained closed. Since I know that the promises of Jesus never fail, I assumed that the problem was my own lack of faith. However, Jesus said that all we need is a faith of a size of a mustard seed.

My mother cooked with mustard seed a lot. I was familiar with it since childhood. It is so small that is almost impossible not to have a faith of that size. It was not that Jesus did not expect much from us. On the contrary, He had high expectations of his disciples but they were not unreasonable ones. He knew that we had it in us to fulfill them if only we would listen to our faith. My prayers went unanswered not because I lacked faith. It is because I was not listening to the voice of my faith instead I allowed myself to be tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine. The disciples listened to their faith and they asked Jesus to teach them how to pray. They understood that prayer was the foundation of the things Jesus did in His life. They wanted to be like Jesus and they wanted to know the source.

In other words, the foundation of Christian prayer is desiring to become like Jesus. It is in this context that Jesus promised whatever we ask, it will be given to us, whatever we seek, we shall find and whatever doors on which knock, it will be opened. Whenever we pray for these things in hope that we will become more like Him, they will always be answered.

The verb, ‘pray’, has been thrown about carelessly. Many times there is something concrete to be done but people use prayer as an excuse to avoid the obvious. Many political figures come to mind but the reality is that all of us have done it. So much so that prayer is hardly taken seriously by some committed Christians. Whenever I tell people that our ministry is a ministry of prayer, the follow-up phrase usually is, “Yes, but what do you do concretely?” Well, prayer is a prelude to concrete action according to the gospel. We pray to become like Jesus so that we can become a source of healing and salvation to those around us. There is nothing theoretical about this. Our Lord was always present in a real and concrete manner. Therefore, when we pray for someone, we are committing ourselves to become the person of Jesus to that particular person. In this context, the promises of Jesus in the above verses will always hold true.

To be honest; all this is still ambiguous. It will always be until we pray to become like Jesus. We are not asked to assent to a theory of prayer. We are called to be people of action, to live our lives in the same manner as Jesus.

“Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.” John 14:12

This is hard to imagine because He did do some incredible things. Maybe we will not be changing water into wine but our prayers might bring us to people and places Jesus never encountered. We might be given the power to be “Jesus” to people whom He did not have access to in His life on earth. Maybe it might be just a simple act of feeding an homebound elderly person living next door to you. Something that Jesus never did. Remember the things that our Lord considered to be great may not seem incredible nor impressive to our worldly concepts. Whatever it is, prayer is the door for us to become like Jesus to those around us.

I am grateful that my parents never tried to teach us to be spiritual with words. I have to say that I have inherited this from them. I find it hard to tell our children and teens what to do or how to do certain things. Besides, our youth have a hard time with words. We can say many true and beautiful things and they will forget everything the very next day, maybe even sooner. However, they remember when we act out in love in the same way after almost fifty years, I still remember my parents in their simple spiritual habits. They did not pray to be religious. They prayed to be connected to God. In doing so, they reflected the quiet Spirit of Jesus to all their children.