Matthew 7:7-11: The Answer to Prayers
Tuesday, June 24, 2025
This month marks my parents’ 89th wedding anniversary; they celebrated 60 years together before Mother died in 1997. It seems a long time ago – yet a brief time ago. I think of them as I spend time with my grandson on visitor’s day in the middle of his two-week Boy Scout camp. Both Mother and Dad were heavy contributors to the Boy and Girl Scouts as adult volunteers. My siblings and my oldest son were all scouts. I found the Brownies a bit boring (I was not into making “sit upons” or selling cookies – although I love to eat them) but as an adult I participated in Scouting as a Den Leader, a Den Leader Coach and as an Assistant Commissioner. Scouting, it seems, is one of my family themes, and scouting was one of the places that we all learned that collaboration and congeniality are as important as prayer and elbow grease when moving a group toward a goal. It is one of the places where we learned – and it was re-enforced – that a huge task becomes a small one when broken into parts for willing hands. It is one of the places we learned that preparedness, forward-thinking, and attention to detail and to one another ease the formation of community. These lessons came from Mother and Dad yes, but as worried parents they used any vehicle handy to bring those lessons home. And the scouting movement was one of many tools for them. This afternoon, watching my grandson scamper along forest paths laid down by scouts who now return as adult volunteers, I felt my parents’ wisdom. And as a parent and now grandparent, I understand how many prayers my parents offered up to God in our behalf. And I understood with a surety I cannot prove that they pray for us still.
In today’s Noontime we see the simple statement that God is a loving parent who wants to grant our wishes. God wants to give us bread and not stones, fish and not snakes. God is standing just on the other side of the door we have closely firmly against him like a two-year old in tantrum or a teenager in angst; he waits patiently for us to see what is before us . . . that we are loved, and that we can do nothing to earn this love. It is a gift freely given by God. We may believe this is fact or we may think it fiction; but in either case, God waits patiently, Jesus tells us. God wants to pardon, to save and to redeem. All we need do is ask. God is the eager parent who uses any tool to hand to bring children together and to build community. Although we may not see or feel this, God works constantly on our behalf, God moves to answer all our prayers. As a patient parent, God wants to give us all those good things for which we ask.
Image from: https://adoptanewbeginning.org/adoption-planning/baby-feet-in-mother-hands-hearth-shape-3/
The Noontimes 