From Telling God To Letting God

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ne of my favorite verses in the Psalms is this: "Be still and know that I am God" (Ps 46:10).

This simple verse reminds us of a profound truth: we have a God. We can be still because we are not alone. We can rest because the world does not depend entirely on us. We can trust because God is present and at work even when we cannot see it.

In this sense, prayer begins not with words but with trust. Before we ask, explain, or understand, we are invited simply to stand before God and allow God to be God. If Jesus meets us where we are and as we are, then in prayer we must also learn to meet God as God is—faithful, loving, patient, and present.

Yet prayer is not always like this. Sometimes we pray while leaving very little room for God to act. There is a contradiction here. Every Sunday we profess our faith in God Almighty, yet at times we behave as though everything ultimately depends on us. We say that God is Lord, but then we try to dictate the terms of His action. We tell God what He should do, when He should do it, and how He should do it. When our prayers are not answered according to our expectations, we become impatient, disappointed, or even frustrated.

At times, we spend more energy instructing God than listening to Him. We seek immediate solutions when perhaps God is seeking something deeper. We ask for results when God is inviting us into a relationship. We want certainty, while God offers trust. We want quick answers, while God patiently forms our hearts. In these moments, we are not allowing God to be God.

In today's Gospel, Jesus speaks about three traditional practices of faith: almsgiving, prayer, and fasting. Yet His concern is not primarily about the practices themselves. Rather, He warns against performing them for appearance's sake. "Take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them." The hypocrites seek recognition. They blow trumpets when they give alms, pray conspicuously in public places, and make their fasting visible to everyone.

Jesus redirects our attention elsewhere. He points us toward the Father who "sees in secret." Give alms in secret. Pray in secret. Fast in secret. Why? Because what matters most is not the performance but the relationship.

At the heart of the Gospel is the invitation to move from appearance to presence, from recognition to relationship. The Father who sees in secret is already there before we arrive. Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are not ways of attracting God's attention; they are ways of deepening our communion with the God who is already lovingly attentive to us.

"Be still and know that I am God." Perhaps that is the foundation of all prayer: trusting enough to let God be God, and discovering that His presence is enough. Amen. Fr JM Manzano SJ

Prayer of Teilhard de Chardin "Patient Trust"

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.

And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.

—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ
excerpted from Hearts on Fire