A woman was at work when she received a phone call that her small daughter was very sick with a fever. She immediately left work and stopped at a pharmacy to get some medication. When she returned to her car, she discovered that she had locked her keys inside. She did not know what to do. She called home and told the babysitter what had happened. The babysitter told her that the child's fever was getting worse and suggested that she might find a coat hanger and use it to open the car.
The woman looked around and found an old, rusty coat hanger that had apparently been left there by someone who had previously locked the keys inside a car. She looked at the hanger and said, “I don't know how to use this.” She then prayed to God and asked Him to send her some help.
Within five minutes, a battered old motorcycle pulled up. A dirty, greasy, bearded man wearing an old biker's skull rag on his head got off the motorcycle. The woman looked at him and thought, “This is what You sent to help me, Lord?” But she was desperate, so she remained silent.
The man asked, “Can I help you?”
She explained, “My daughter is very sick. I stopped to get her medication and locked my keys in my car. I have to get home to her. Can you please use this hanger to unlock my car?”
“Sure,” he said.
He walked over to the car, and in less than a minute the car was open.
The woman thanked him with tears in her eyes. “Thank you so much! You are a very nice man.”
The man replied, “Lady, I am not a nice man. I just got out of prison today. I was in prison for car theft, and I have been out for about an hour.”
The woman thanked him again, and with tears streaming down her face she cried, “Oh, thank You, God! You even sent me a professional!”
Sometimes God answers our prayers in ways we would never have imagined. We may ask God to send us an angel, and He may send us a person who does not look anything like the angel we expected! God does not always answer according to our plans, but He knows exactly what He is doing.
Prayer is a vital part of Christian life. Through prayer we communicate with God through Jesus Christ, our great High Priest. Scripture tells us: “Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). St James also reminds us, “The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective” (James 5:16).
Therefore, when you are facing a problem in your personal life, pray. When your marriage is going through difficulties, pray. When your children are struggling, pray. When there is misunderstanding between husband and wife, pray. When there is sickness in the family, pray. When you do not know what decision to make, pray. When you have lost your job, pray. When you feel that you have failed, pray. When someone in your family has walked away from God, pray. Prayer does not mean that we stop taking responsible action; it means that we take action with God rather than trying to carry everything alone.
Always have trust in God, pray to Him and be patient. He may help us from sources we never could have imagined. Sometimes the answer comes immediately; sometimes it takes years; sometimes the answer is different from what we expected. But the person who prays learns to discover that God is present even during the waiting.
Praying to God is the way we communicate with Him. For communication to be effective, there should be a genuine desire.
There is a story about a boy who was watching a holy man praying beside a river. When the man had finished his prayer, the boy approached him and asked, “Will you teach me to pray?”
The man studied the boy's face carefully. Then he suddenly took the boy by the head and plunged it into the water! The boy struggled desperately to breathe. Finally, the man released him.
The boy gasped for air and asked, “What did you do that for?”
The holy man said, “I just gave you your first lesson.”
“What do you mean?”
“When you long to pray as much as you wanted to breathe, only then will I be able to teach you to pray.”
The story makes an important point, although we should not imitate the holy man's method! Prayer must become more than a routine. We should not pray only because it is written on the timetable. Prayer should arise from a heart that genuinely desires God.
Jesus Himself teaches us to pray with persistence and sincerity. Before choosing the Twelve Apostles, He spent the night in prayer (Luke 6:12-13). Before beginning His public ministry, He withdrew into the wilderness (Luke 4:1-2). Before His Passion, He prayed in Gethsemane (Matthew 26:36-46). If Jesus, the Son of God, deliberately made time for prayer, how much more do we need prayer?
We can examine our prayer according to several important elements.
Firstly, prayer should express adoration. We praise and honour the Lord, not merely because of what He gives us, but because of who He is. God is God even before He answers our prayer. He deserves our worship even before He solves our problem.
King Hezekiah, when threatened by the Assyrians, began his prayer by recognizing who God was: “O Lord, the God of Israel, who are enthroned above the cherubim, you are God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth” (2 Kings 19:15).
Notice something important. Hezekiah had a crisis, but he did not begin by telling God how big the crisis was. He began by telling himself how great God was.
That is an important lesson for us. Sometimes we spend ten minutes telling everyone how big our problem is and only ten seconds telling God about it. Prayer reverses that order: “Lord, my problem is big, but You are bigger.”
After crossing the Red Sea, Moses prayed: “Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in splendour, doing wonders?” (Exodus 15:11).
The heavenly worship described in Revelation is filled with adoration: “Worthy is the Lamb... Blessing and honour and glory and might forever and ever!” (Revelation 5:12-13).
Adoration changes our perspective. When we praise God, we remind ourselves that our lives are not controlled by circumstances alone. There is a God who is greater than our fears, greater than our failures and greater than our family problems.
A good practice is to begin family prayer not with a list of complaints but with praise: “Lord, thank You for our family. Thank You that we are alive. Thank You for our home. Thank You for our children. Thank You for the food on our table. Thank You for bringing us through yesterday.”
Then we can bring our difficulties before Him.
Secondly, prayer should have an element of confession. We must honestly deal with sin in our prayer life.
Nehemiah, when he heard about the ruined condition of Jerusalem, prayed: “Confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Both I and my family have sinned” (Nehemiah 1:6-7).
David, after his terrible sin involving Bathsheba, prayed: “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight” (Psalm 51:3-4).
Daniel prayed in Babylon: “We have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and ordinances” (Daniel 9:5).
These prayers teach us something very important: genuine prayer requires humility. We cannot ask God to change everything around us while refusing to allow Him to change us.
Sometimes in family problems we pray, “Lord, change my husband.” The husband prays, “Lord, change my wife.” The children pray, “Lord, change my parents.” And perhaps heaven is saying, “Would anybody like to volunteer for a little change themselves?”
Jesus illustrated this beautifully in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18:9-14). The Pharisee stood praying about his own goodness, while the tax collector stood at a distance and prayed, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” Jesus said that the tax collector went home justified.
The tax collector did not come to God pretending to be perfect. He came honestly. That is the kind of prayer God desires.
St Augustine understood this profoundly. After many years of wandering away from God, he finally surrendered his life to Christ. His mother, St Monica, had prayed for him for years. Her prayers did not produce an immediate result. But she did not give up. Her persistent prayer eventually became part of the story of one of the Church's greatest saints.
St Monica teaches parents something powerful: never stop praying for your children. A child may ignore your advice, but never underestimate what God can do through the prayers of a mother or father.
Confession is therefore not humiliation; it is liberation. We say, “Lord, I was wrong. Forgive me. Heal me. Change me.” A family that learns to say “I am sorry” can become a family that knows the healing power of God.
Thirdly, prayer should be thanksgiving. We should verbalize what we are grateful for in our lives and in the world around us.
There is a humorous story about two angels who were sent to earth. One was given the task of collecting people's requests, while the other was asked to collect thanksgiving. The angel collecting requests soon filled his box and had to return to heaven repeatedly. The angel collecting thanksgiving could hardly fill one box by evening!
The story may make us smile, but it also makes us think. How many things do we ask from God every day? And how often do we stop and say, “Thank You”?
Many of our prayers are answered, but how many of us return to God with gratitude for the blessings we have received?
The Psalmist says: “O come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving” (Psalm 95:1-2).
Mary's Magnificat is one of the greatest prayers of thanksgiving: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour... for the Mighty One has done great things for me” (Luke 1:46-49).
Jesus Himself gave thanks. Before raising Lazarus, He looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me” (John 11:41). He gave thanks before multiplying the loaves (John 6:11). At the Last Supper, He gave thanks before giving Himself to His disciples (Luke 22:19).
Gratitude is therefore not only for good days. St Paul says, “Give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). This does not mean thanking God for evil or suffering as though evil were good. It means that even in suffering we can believe that God is still with us.
Many of the Psalms are filled with thanksgiving. David experienced victory and defeat, joy and sorrow, success and persecution. Yet he repeatedly returned to God's goodness.
Gratitude is a habit. We teach children to say “please” and “thank you” by repetition. In the same way, we learn spiritual gratitude by practising it. At dinner, say thank you. Before sleeping, say thank you. When something good happens, say thank you. When you survive a difficult situation, say thank you.
Psalm 7:17 says, “I will give thanks to the Lord according to his righteousness, and sing praise to the name of the Lord, the Most High.” Psalm 9:1 says, “I will give thanks to you, O Lord, with my whole heart.”
The story of the ten lepers makes the point even more powerfully. Ten were healed, but only one returned to Jesus to give thanks. Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they?” (Luke 17:17).
We should ask ourselves the same question: Where are the nine?
Perhaps sometimes we are among the nine. We remember God when we need Him but forget Him when the problem disappears.
Let our prayer become: “Lord, thank You—not only for what You give me, but for who You are.”
Another important element of prayer is supplication: praying for the needs of others and ourselves.
St Paul asked the Church to pray: “Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with thanksgiving. At the same time pray for us as well that God will open to us a door for the word” (Colossians 4:2-3).
Jesus prayed for His disciples. In His great priestly prayer He asked the Father to protect them and keep them from evil (John 17:9, 14-15).
Stephen, while being stoned, prayed for his persecutors: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them” (Acts 7:60).
What a prayer! His enemies were throwing stones at him; he was throwing forgiveness back at them.
That is Christian prayer.
We should pray for others: for our spouse, children, parents, relatives, priests, parish, neighbours, those who are sick, those who have lost their faith, those who have hurt us, and even those whom we find difficult to love.
And then we may place our own needs before God.
Supplication for oneself.
There is a humorous story about a Christian woman who lived next door to an atheist. Every day, the woman prayed aloud. The atheist heard her and thought she was crazy.
He repeatedly mocked her: “Why do you pray all the time? Don't you know there is no God?”
The woman continued praying.
One day she ran out of groceries. She prayed to God, explaining her situation and thanking Him for what she believed He would provide.
The atheist heard her prayer and thought, “I'll show her!” He went to the grocery store, bought a large quantity of groceries, took them to her doorstep, rang the bell and hid in the bushes.
The woman opened the door, saw the groceries and began praising God, jumping, singing and thanking Him.
The atheist jumped out and shouted, “God didn't buy those groceries! I bought them!”
The woman began running down the street, praising God even louder.
When he finally caught up with her, he asked what was wrong.
She replied, “I knew God would provide the groceries. I just didn't know He was going to make the devil pay for them!”
It is a humorous story, but it reminds us that God can use unexpected people and unexpected circumstances to answer prayer.
Hannah prayed for a child: “O Lord of hosts, if only you will look on the misery of your servant... and give to your servant a male child, then I will set him before you as a Nazirite until the day of his death” (1 Samuel 1:11). Her prayer was eventually answered with the birth of Samuel.
Jonah prayed from the belly of the great fish: “I called to the Lord out of my distress, and he answered me” (Jonah 2:2).
Even from inside a place where nobody would expect a prayer meeting, Jonah discovered that God could hear him!
Jesus prayed in Gethsemane shortly before His crucifixion: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want” (Matthew 26:39).
This is one of the deepest lessons about prayer. Prayer is not forcing God to do our will. Prayer gradually teaches us to surrender our will to God's wisdom.
Therefore, place your needs before God. But also say, “Lord, give me what is truly good for me. If my request is not according to Your plan, give me the grace to accept Your will.”
There is a funny story about a little boy kneeling beside his bed with his mother and grandmother. He softly prayed, “Dear God, please bless Mummy and Daddy and all the family and please give me a good night's sleep.”
Suddenly he looked up and shouted, “And don't forget to give me a bicycle for my birthday!”
His mother said, “There is no need to shout. God isn't deaf.”
The boy replied, “No, but Grandma is!”
Children sometimes have a very practical theology!
God hears the cry of His children. But Christian prayer is not magic. We do not pray in order to manipulate God. We pray because we trust Him.
Pray to God with sincerity and honesty.
A married man once prayed:
“Dear God, You gave me childhood and You took it away.
You gave me youth and You took it away.
You gave me a wife... It's been years now, just reminding You!”
We can laugh at the story, but it touches an important truth: God wants us to speak honestly to Him.
Jesus said, “Whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray... so that they may be seen by others” (Matthew 6:5). Instead, He said, “Go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret” (Matthew 6:6).
Prayer is not a performance. God is not impressed by long words if our hearts are far away.
Sometimes we pray beautiful prayers in church and then go home and argue with everyone. God may be thinking, “The prayer was beautiful. Now let us see whether you intend to live it!”
Talk honestly to God. Tell Him your anger. Tell Him your fear. Tell Him your disappointment. Tell Him your temptation. Tell Him your family problem. Tell Him your confusion. Tell Him when you are hurt.
The Psalms show us that prayer can contain tears, questions, fear, praise, anger, hope and confidence. God is not frightened by our honesty.
Pray constantly.
It is important to pray continually without losing heart. In Luke 11:5-13 Jesus gives the parable of the friend who comes at midnight asking for bread. The friend inside does not want to get up, but the man keeps knocking. Jesus then says, “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you” (Luke 11:9).
In Luke 18:1-8 Jesus gives another parable, that of the persistent widow. She repeatedly goes to an unjust judge seeking justice. Eventually the judge gives in because of her persistence.
Jesus uses these stories not because God is like a reluctant neighbour or an unjust judge, but to teach us not to lose heart in prayer.
Some people pray for three days and say, “God hasn't answered.”
Some pray for three weeks and say, “God hasn't answered.”
Some pray for three years and wonder, “Is God listening?”
St Monica prayed for years for Augustine. She did not give up.
The important question is not merely, “How quickly did God answer?” but “What was God doing in me while I waited?”
Sometimes prayer changes the situation. Sometimes prayer changes us. And sometimes prayer changes both.
Jesus says, “Ask and it will be given you; search and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you” (Luke 11:9-10).
He then reminds us that earthly parents know how to give good gifts to their children. How much more will our heavenly Father give good things to those who ask Him (Matthew 7:9-11).
Prayer is therefore not wasted time.
Pray with faith, but also with trust in God's wisdom.
There is a humorous story called “A Bar Opened Opposite a Church.”
A bar opened directly opposite a church. The church members were disturbed, so they prayed every day that the business would close.
One day lightning struck the bar, and it caught fire and was destroyed.
The owner sued the church authorities, claiming that their prayers had caused the destruction.
The church denied responsibility.
The judge commented, “This is a difficult case. We have a bar owner who believes in the power of prayer and an entire church that does not!”
The story is funny, but it also asks us a serious question: Do we really believe that prayer matters?
We pray many times and then complain that our prayer is not heard. But do we pray with faith? And do we understand what faith means?
Faith does not mean telling God exactly how He must answer. Faith means believing that God hears us, loves us and will act according to His wisdom.
There is another story about a village where rain had failed for three years. The crops had disappeared. The land was brown and dry. Trees had lost their leaves. The riverbed was cracked and empty. The people were desperate.
Finally, they decided to gather for common prayer.
As the adults gathered for prayer, one little child arrived carrying an umbrella.
People laughed.
Someone asked, “Why did you bring an umbrella?”
The child answered, “Because after we pray, it will rain, and we will get wet!”
That child understood something that many adults forget: If we pray for rain, we should at least bring an umbrella.
We sometimes pray for something while secretly expecting God not to answer.
Faith expects God to act, even though it does not dictate how He will act.
Tradition tells a story connected with St Thomas the Apostle in India. According to the tradition, St Thomas encountered people performing a ritual involving water and questioned the logic of offering water that simply fell back to the earth. The tradition recounts that St Thomas prayed in the name of Jesus and the water remained suspended in the air, shining like diamonds.
Whether every detail of the traditional account can be historically verified is another question, but the tradition expresses an important conviction associated with the missionary faith of St Thomas: faith in Christ trusts in the power of God.
Jesus repeatedly taught His disciples to have faith. But Christian faith is never a demand that God must perform exactly what we want.
A child may ask his father for a sharp knife because he wants to play with it. A loving father will refuse—not because he does not love the child, but precisely because he does.
Likewise, sometimes God says yes. Sometimes He says no. Sometimes He says, “Wait.” And sometimes He gives something better than what we asked.
There is a beautiful prayer traditionally known as “I Asked God.” It expresses this truth:
I asked God for strength that I might achieve.
I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey.
I asked for health that I might do greater things.
I was given infirmity that I might do better things.
I asked for riches that I might be happy.
I was given poverty that I might be wise.
I asked for power that I might have the praise of men.
I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God.
I asked for all things that I might enjoy life.
I was given life that I might enjoy all things.
I got nothing that I asked for, but everything I had hoped for.
Family prayer. Children learn to pray from their parents.
Listen to the experience of Pope John Paul about his father.
“I had not yet made my First Communion when I lost my mother: I was barely nine years old. So I do not have a clear awareness of her contribution which must have been great, to my religious training... Day after day I was able to observe the austere way in which my father lived... Sometimes I would wake up during the night and find my father on his knees, just as I would always see him kneeling in the parish church.”
The old saying, “A family that prays together, stays together” carries a lot of weight. Prayer is a natural parenting tool. Deuteronomy 6:6-7 states that we are to keep God’s words on our hearts and share them with our children. As they experience faith through prayer, it will help them seek God at all times. Children will discover that God is eager to be part of their lives. In our home, we pray before we leave for a journey. We pray when problems arise. We pray when we celebrate good news. That invites God into all aspects of our lives and shows we want God to be part of our family.
We see this beautifully in the Bible in the family of Timothy. St Paul reminds Timothy that his faith first lived in his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice: “I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice” (2 Timothy 1:5). Their faith became Timothy’s faith. What children see and experience at home can remain in their hearts for a lifetime.
There is a funny story that happened during family prayer in a village. The village had a lot of coconut trees and toddy collection was a wide practice in the village. In one of the families the mother and children assembled for the prayer. Father took the last seat. Prayer started and after some time father became silent. Elder son looked back and he found father was missing. Slowly he too slipped out. Toddy was a weakness for him. He decided to climb a coconut tree to drink toddy. As he was going up he found someone climbing down. They came face to face. The descending man was shocked to see his son climbing up. In great embarrassment the father said, “Son, this is not good.”
The son replied: “If this is not good let’s climb on the next tree.”
What is done by the parents is imitated by the children. So it is a great responsibility of the parents to lead their children in prayer by way of their own examples.
We have a beautiful example in the life of St Monica. She prayed for many years for the conversion of her son Augustine. Her prayers were not answered immediately, but she never gave up. Eventually Augustine became a great saint and Doctor of the Church. Her life reminds parents that sometimes the greatest thing we can do for our children is to place them continually into the hands of God through prayer.
Family prayer builds Unity and Intimacy in the family.
Prayer builds unity and intimacy not only with the person to whom we pray, but the people we pray with, and those we pray for. By praying together, a couple’s relationship and home life can be changed for the better. By praying together, a broken family can be restored. Remember, family members can never change each other, but God can change them if you invite Him to do so.
Jesus Himself said, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them” (Matthew 18:20). If two or three members of a family gather together in prayer, Jesus is present in that home. A family may have problems, but it does not have to face those problems alone.
No matter what struggles you face today, none are too big for God to solve, if you will humble yourself before each other and the Lord and ask for His help. When a family prays together, even a difficult situation can become an opportunity to turn towards God instead of turning against one another. When you experience the tangible presence of God that comes through praying together, it can change the spiritual climate of the home.
A mother once shared that whenever there was a serious problem in their family, her mother would say, “Let us pray first, and then we will decide what to do.” As a child she did not understand it. But as she grew older, she realised that her mother had taught her an important lesson: before worrying, pray; before making a decision, pray; before giving up, pray. That simple practice remained with her throughout her life.
The Holy Family also gives us an example. St Luke tells us that Mary and Joseph took Jesus to Jerusalem every year for the Passover (Luke 2:41). Jesus grew up in a home where prayer and worship were part of family life. The home of Nazareth reminds us that our homes too can become places where children learn to know and love God.
Those who hold family prayer should continue to do it. Those who do not should start right away. Prayer will transform you, your family and your parish. Even a few minutes together—before going to bed, before a journey, or before an important family decision—can make a difference.
A family that prays together may still have problems, but it learns to face those problems together—with God.
-Satish Selvarance