Ex 17:8-13

Remembering what God has done for you in the past as a reason to persevere

Beloved in Christ, no matter how good you are at prayer there comes a time when you just don’t want to pray. You may lose the motivation to pray due to prayers that are not answered or some difficulties in waiting on God. There are times that we might even be tempted to quit praying all together. However, no matter how difficult our prayer life gets, Jesus tells us in our gospel today that we cannot quit because prayer is a partnership with God. It is a spiritual union through which we learn to align our will with God’s will, and receive the grace to nurture our relationships with God and neighbor. Giving up prayer is giving up on this spiritual union.

Our first and second readings today tell us how we can persevere in prayer at all times. St. Paul tells Timothy to remember what he had learned and experienced and as a way of deriving new strength and joy to go on in his ministry. The first reading is a story about how Moses had to fight different battles to protect the People of God from their enemies and keep them moving towards the Promised Land. In today’s reading, the people are in war and their enemies seem stronger then them. However, instead of giving up hope, Moses makes the decision to persevere.

He took the staff and raised his hands all day; and as long as he kept doing that the Israelites won the battle. There is some symbolism in this reading that speaks to us. Why did Moses go for the staff? That was his way of recalling what God had done for him and his people in the past. Moses remembered that when he raised the staff before Pharaoh, some snakes where swallowed (Do you recall that story?). He remembered that when he thought all hope was gone at the red sea, raising the staff divided the sea and brought salvation to the people. Moses also remembered that when the people were dying out of thirst in the desert, he raised this staff and God gave water that kept the people alive. Remembering what God had done for him in the past brought Moses new hope in a hopeless situation and gave him the strength to persevere.

It is also important to note that, Moses did not just remember these past blessings cognitively; but he also celebrated what he remembered as symbolized by the raising of his hands, which was both a sign of prayer and celebration.  That is what you and I need to do when we get stuck in our prayer life. When we don’t feel like praying again, or when we are tempted to loose faith in prayer we need to recall what God has done for us in the past. Each of us can tell some story of a time in our life when we thought it was over but God came through for us. When we remember God’s blessings and celebrate them we will receive new strength to persevere in prayer.