What Kind of Prayer Creates Hope?

Pope Francis is convinced that prayer can create hope where there is despair. What kind of prayer could do this? I suspect the answer is hidden in a line often found in the day’s Psalm Response: “Offer the Holy One a sacrifice of praise.” Now, what on earth is a “sacrifice” of praise? At first glance, praise doesn’t seem to have anything to do with sacrifice. Praise is exuberant, joyful, right? What kind of sacrifice might add to this praise? 


To praise and trust God utterly in the face of the following, I think is a true “sacrifice.”
· When I’ve prayed and prayed, and God doesn’t seem to hear
· When I pray and things get worse
· When it occurs to me that God is not listening
· When I decide that I am not worthy to be heard
· When I think I must be praying the wrong way
· When I keep repeating myself as if God is deaf or needs to be reminded 


All of these are my perspectives; they are my point of view. But scripture tells me otherwise:
· “Ask, and you shall receive…”
· “Whatever you ask the Father in my name, that I will do…” 


So this confronts me with a choice: either I stay in my narrow point of view and quit, or make an act of trust that God indeed has heard me the first time, and is already busy answering my prayer…but, not on my timeline, and in ways not known to me. This sacrifice of my own narrow viewpoint then becomes an act of praise:
· I praise God who always hears the hushed prayer of the tiniest child
· I praise God who always hears me
· I praise the God who always keeps promises
· I trust that the Word who made the cosmos can manage my concern
· I acknowledge that God is sovereign and I am not
· I beg for the patience to wait for my answer in God’s due time
· I trust that as the need comes to my mind over and over again, God is at work in a hidden way doing something about it, and I thank the Holy One for this.


Now this is where we can finally get Pope Francis’ point: the result of this “sacrifice” of praise is the creation of a strong hope. 


                                          Hope pushes ahead when it would be easy to quit.

                                                                                                                   - The Christophers