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E
ASTER
W
EEKDAY
Acts of the Apostles 18: 23-28
Psalm 47:2-3, 8-9, 10
John 16:23B-28
S
UMMARY
"Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give
you.ˉ
R
EFLECTION
In the gospel reading today, we are assured that when we pray, if we ask our pe-
titions of the Father in Jesus˅ name, God will respond to us and we will receive
ˈso that our joy may be completeˉ. God will open his heart to us by means of the
love that we have for Jesus, along with our belief that Jesus came to us from the
Father.
Almost sounds like we have received the ˈMagic Genie Bottleˉ, doesn˅t it? It˅s
so easy - as long as we love Jesus and believe that Jesus has come to us from
the Father, we˅ve hit the jackpot, won the lotto, and all of our prayers will be an-
swered, right? Well, I definitely believe that we have hit the jackpot AND won the
lotto, but I don˅t think it˅s reasonable to believe that all of our prayers will be an-
sweredˎ in the way we WANT them to be answered, that is! Our most gracious
and loving God no doubt hears ALL of our prayers, and through our faith in His
Son, our Savior, He listens to each petition. I have no doubt that He longs for
our joy to be complete, and I have no doubt that our joy will be complete when
we join Him in our eternal reward after our life on earth. In the meantime though,
our human wishes, hopes and desires
may not be the best choices for us.
This is where God˅s infinite love and
providence enter into His answers.
In 1990, Garth Brooks had a huge hit
with a song entitled ˈUnanswered
Prayersˉ. The lyrics tell the story of a
man who runs into his old high school