{"id":522,"date":"2014-03-13T11:40:21","date_gmt":"2014-03-13T16:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/?p=522"},"modified":"2014-03-27T11:42:22","modified_gmt":"2014-03-27T16:42:22","slug":"learn-how-to-pray-from-esther","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/?p=522","title":{"rendered":"Learn How to Pray From Esther"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thursday of First Week of Lent<\/span><\/h2>\n

Esth C: 12, 14-16, 23-25; Mt 7: 7-12<\/span><\/h2>\n

Dc. Larry Brockman<\/span><\/h2>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It seemed like a hopeless situation.\u00a0 The entire exiled Jewish nation was doomed by a decree of the Persian King Cyrus, Esther\u2019s husband, after he had been tricked into signing that decree by an unscrupulous leader.\u00a0 But Esther had Faith and her prayers were answered, as you will find if you read the rest of the book of Esther.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Notice a couple of things about Esther\u2019s prayer.\u00a0 First, she is humble.\u00a0 Esther prostrates herself and her entire court and she begins with a humble plea to the God of her ancestors.\u00a0 Second, she talks about how God always listens to those who abide by the law.\u00a0 Esther\u2019s obedience was well established earlier in the book.\u00a0 Next, her pray is not so much for herself, but rather for her people.\u00a0 In other words it is for a very worthy cause.\u00a0 And lastly, she was praying for God\u2019s help to inspire her in what to do, rather than an outright miracle.\u00a0 She was willing to do her part, whatever was required as long as it was God\u2019s will.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Jesus tells us in the Gospel that God will always hear our prayers and give us what we truly need.\u00a0 But we need to ask Him in the proper way.\u00a0 In that regard, we would do well to pray as Esther did: with a humble and contrite heart; while in a state of grace from our obedience to God\u2019s commandments and will; asking for something that we truly need rather than just want; and prepared to play an active role in making the answer to the prayer happen.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Then, after we pray, we need to trust that God will answer our prayer.\u00a0 We need to recognize that what He gave us was a fish, not a snake.\u00a0 Sometimes that can seem hard because our prayers are not always answered the way we want them.\u00a0 But consider that if this is the summary of the law and the prophets:\u00a0 \u201cDo to others whatever you would have them do to you\u201d.\u00a0 Then certainly God will do for us what is right for us.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thursday of First Week of Lent Esth C: 12, 14-16, 23-25; Mt 7: 7-12 Dc. Larry Brockman \u00a0 It seemed like a hopeless situation.\u00a0 The entire exiled Jewish nation was doomed by a decree of the Persian King Cyrus, Esther\u2019s husband, after he had been tricked into signing that decree by an unscrupulous leader.\u00a0 But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[278],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=522"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":524,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522\/revisions\/524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}