Devotional Thought of the Day:
³¹ “So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’³² These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs.³³ Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. ³⁴ “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today. Matthew 6:31-34 (NLT2)

But we still cannot change God, can we? No, we cannot. But is that why we pray? To change omniscient Love? Isn’t it rather to learn what it is and to fulfill it? Not to change it by our acts, but to change our acts by it.
The fact that God’s love is unchangeable does not change the fact that it is love. It always wills what is best for us. And
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prayer is best for us. Therefore, we must pray precisely because God’s love is unchangeable. He is unchangeably loving and commands prayer for us.

895    Work tires you physically and leaves you unable to pray. But you’re always in the presence of your Father. If you can’t speak to him, look at him every now and then like a little child … and he’ll smile at you.

Let me be honest, last week was a long, exhausting blessed mess.

It took a while to wake up and get going this morning, and even though I am in my office now, I am still dragging. Dragging enough that I thought I could not pay good enough attention to really make my devotions “worth it.”  (Whatever that means!)  So I almost moved past them to “get to work” studying scripture and preparing next week’s order of worship.

Logically, at least with what little logic was available, I realized how stupid that sounded. Overlook prayer and time with God to plan… prayer and time with God?

So back to my devotions, and what’s the common topic?  Prayer, of course!  (God does have a sense of humor!)

And I remembered why I love the practical faith of St. Josemaria!  He remembered the ultimate truth about prayer.  It is not the flowery words, it is not about the incredible dialogue. It is simply about being in the presence of God, our Father!  It is about looking up to Him, unable perhaps to even speak of our need to depend upon Him… and realize He is present – that He is looking at us!

Perhaps that is why the most meaningful time of prayer is when we are simply silent!

From St. Josemaria’s simplicity to Peter Kreeft’s philosophy, where I found the same message. There it takes the essence of why do you pray if God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and unchanging? Are you going to change God’s mind? ( As Abraham thought he might be able to with Sodom?)

Ot is it something more than by struggling with prayer, by seeking God out, we begin to understand His love, His passionate care? In our times of prayer, we learn that He does desire the best for us and actively works in our lives to make it so? That even times of bargaining with Abraham, or the Samaritan woman who argued for her daughter’s healing, God is teaching us the lesson of interacting with Him, and not just using Him as a genie from the bottle?

Think through this… I decided to look up the Lord’s prayer… and missed it by a few verses, coming to those above in red. Which says the same thing…

Stop worrying,

Leave it in God’s hands…

Look at Jesus, look at the Father… seek them first… and see Them smile.

Amen!

Peter Kreeft, The God Who Loves You (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004), 147–148.

Escriva, Josemaria. The Way . Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.