Sometimes seeing the world in a different way helps us get through a challenge and sometimes challenging what’s normal is the way. When I was growing up we were taught to sit still and be quiet. Children were seen and not heard. Prayer was by rote and meaningless to my young mind, and we did what we were told. Our Father who art in Heaven, was mumbled every night with my hands clasped under my chin. As we grew into young people with hormonal worries and relationship struggles, our prayers became pleas; Help me God, was how mine often began. And then another evolution came as an adult, when we were able to see outside of ourselves, when faced with the injustice of the world, God help them, or God help us all.
In the Bible Jesus teaches us to pray, and he gifts us the Lord’s Prayer. But he also gifts us instruction of how to pray and when. In the lampoon like parable of the Widow and the unjust Judge we are taught the act of active prayer. We are taught that Jesus may be a while returning to us, but that in that meanwhile, God is listening and keen to answer our pleas for justice. We are not meant to sit quietly and wait, but instead to be like the widow: loud, persistent and intentional, to pray without ceasing, and be the squeaky wheel.
Jenn Ashton