Prayer, the way to sufficiency

Powerful and effective prayer is born from that great abyss that opens within us when we consider our essential helplessness. It is a healthy recognition that, as the title of the famous novel by the Peruvian writer Ciro Alegría suggests, "the world is wide and alien." The world is populated with hostile forces. It is much more mysterious, unfathomable and complex than we can process with our limited capacity. Abandoned to our own resources, without the powerful arms of our heavenly Father to defend us and lift us out of the hole, we are like helpless children in a jungle populated by wild beasts.

That is the feeling of humility and total dependence manifested in Psalms 120 to 134, known as "Gradual Songs" or "Songs of the ascents." Psalm 124, in particular, expresses that overwhelming awareness on the part of the writer that were it not for Jehovah's merciful intervention, he would easily have succumbed to the merciless attacks of the enemy:

1 Unless the Lord was for us,

Say now Israel;

2 Unless the Lord was for us,

When men rose up against us,

3 They would have swallowed us alive then,

When his anger was kindled against us.

4 Then the waters would have flooded us;

The torrent would have passed over our soul;

5 Then the mighty waters would have passed over our soul.

6 Blessed be the Lord,

That we were not prey to their teeth.

7 Our soul escaped like a bird from the snare of hunters;

The bond was broken, and we escaped.

8 Our help is in the name of the Lord,

Who made heaven and earth.

In his commentary on this beautiful psalm, Dr. Samuel Pagán writes: The central message of the psalm recognizes divine intervention as an extraordinary source of salvation. The fundamental image that emerges from poetry is that of a God who accompanies his people through the vicissitudes and anguish of human existence. The basic purpose of the poet is to affirm categorically that the people have not been alone and that in the same way that in the past they experienced divine liberation also in the present and the future that same redemptive power is ready to respond to the cry of the people. .

Authentic prayer will always be the product of an acknowledgment that we do not have what it takes, that we lack the wisdom, the strength, the solution, the resources, that we need. Effective prayer always comes from a man or a woman who looks at himself and says, “I don't know what to do; I don't have what I need. What is required to win in this situation is not within me ”.

But prayer always goes beyond that initial recognition of inadequacy. After admitting his helplessness, the person who believes turns his eyes to God, extends his hands, and opens his soul in expectation of the merciful response of the heavenly Father.