On Behalf of the 63d RD,

Prayer

Matthew 6:5-8 “Whenever you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, because they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by people. Truly I tell you, they have their reward. But when you pray, go into your private room, shut your door, and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. When you pray, don’t babble like the Gentiles, since they imagine they’ll be heard for their many words. Don’t be like them, because your Father knows the things you need before you ask Him.”

Prayer can be very complicated or very simple and straight forward in its application, the key to prayer lies in the asking, hearing and receiving. We pray for many things in this life. I rarely pray for myself. I mainly pray for others to be well, comforted, blessed, or protected. When our prayer requests are not directly answered exactly as we requested we often feel like our prayers have not been answered and we usually have two responses: 1. We continue to pray for the same request. 2. We get angry because we feel like God is not listening or answering our petitions.

I would like to pose a third reason for seemingly unanswered prayer. Perhaps God is answering our prayers by not giving us what we request. We hate it when someone says, ‘No!’, but when a child asks for something they should not have due to age, timing, safety, or their wellbeing we often say no. Yet, we have a hard time comprehending God saying no.

I would like to pose a fourth reason. Perhaps God is saying yes, but is not giving us the answer in the way we have asked for it. We hear the word, NO, but often it’s YES, but not in the way we imagined. The hardest prayer people ask me to pray for them is over the loss of a child before birth when the parent really desires to have children of their own, or for a woman that can’t conceive her own child and when she comes to me, after many, many prayers to God, wanting to know the reason why. I can’t answer that question. But what I can pose is that timing is the most important aspect of prayer, and being open to how that prayer will be answered in the proper time, and in how God knows it needs to be answered. For some that will be gifting a parentless child a home, and for others it’s when their womb is at its best to carry and birth a child. That’s where trust comes into play when we pray that God will give us not what and when we want our prayers answered, but what, when, and how we need our prayers answered.

In my life, it worked out better that I did not have a child, even thought I had wanted just one. In my sister’s life, she was unable to have her own child so in an open adoption she was gifted a child by someone who decided not to abort but to give up her child and picked my sister to be his mother. My sister raised him as if he was her very own, and loved him even more.

I pose one last thought. When we pray, we should pray with the understanding that God knows what we need, in the form we need it, and when we need that answer brought to life before our eyes. So, before we pray for what we want we should consider that we may need to pray for patience in order wait for the answer that may not come in the form or in the timing we are striving to attain. If one’s heart remains open to how God desires to answer what we ask for, then the result is always better than if He had given it to us in how we imagined. God knows what we need even before we ask Him.

CH (MAJ) Dawn Siebold

 

Here is the direct email and phone number for anyone requesting support from the 63d RD Chaplain office,

usarmy.usarc.63-rsc.list.chaplain-all-users@mail.mil

650-526-9668

 

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