March 15 - 4th Week of Lent - Thursday

­­+ Our readings today are about the necessity of and efficacious power of prayer to God the Father, Creator.  The reason this story is included in Scripture is that it demonstrates not that God’s mind can be changed, but that sometimes we can, in effect, by our “spouting off to him” with our opinions, perspective and insights, steer him back to his original plan and proposals.

So, in this reading, we see Moses reminding God that his original purpose was to form a people, a nation, a family – for his own present and future purposes - and that now destroying them because of their infidelity, disobedience and sin, would be easy enough for him, but it would wipe out also his own plan and love for them, and the coming of the future Messiah.

God listens to Moses and goes back to his original scheme.

Now would God, one way or another, gone back anyway? of course he would, but this story, as it plays out, tells us that our prayers, our reminders to God, based on our human care and concern for others, and ourselves, can influence the mind of God: perhaps God included our prayer to him in his original plan, if we don’t pray, then we are upsetting the whole applecart.

But, the catching point is this: it is always for GOD’S WILL AND WAY TO CARRY IT OUT, that we ought to be praying for: always, and not our own. We can only, at best, see a sliver of the total picture that any of our prayers can actually contribute to; so it is best to say, as Jesus taught us: THY WILL BE DONE, ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN.

That way everything just simply works out for the best for all involved.

In the gospel passage Jesus is complaining because the Jewish people at the close of his life understand none of this, and so he tells them, even if they believed a fraction of what Moses said and did in the formation of them as a people, they would know how to act, when to act and what to pray for, and it wouldn’t be their own will and way!

Don’t worry God knows everything about everything, he knows how every bit of our daily lives is constructed and how its all supposed to fit together: TRUST HIM WITH WORKING OUT THE DETAILS INSTEAD OF YOURSELF: you will be much happier, much more peaceful, and a whole lot more of good, right, beautiful, just, and merciful action will be performed and the Kingdom of God will be that more visible, attractive and the fulfillment of which will seem to be our true end goal.

I will place my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people, says the Lord.