Does God work for you?

The Mail & Guardian poster displayed over Easter asked: “Is God working for you?” My first reaction was: “Of course, that is what we believe.” Then I thought some more “How successful is my relationship with God? Is it really working for me?”

And then, when I visited the newspaper’s website to check out what was behind the question, the related article was: “Is God at the goal posts?” Like so much else in South Africa, it had to do with football. Does God answer the prayers of the players and how does God decide which team to support? Those who pray the loudest, the longest, the most passionately?

Most people have asked themselves at some time how and when prayer works, and there is no simple answer. Prayer is an act of faith. We believe that God hears our prayers, knows our needs and responds in his own way in his own good time. We believe that what God really desires is our salvation, ultimately.

I think that it is particularly hard to deal with children’s questions. They can really put one on the spot. What does one say to a little girl who tells you: “I asked God every day to make Mommy better and he didn’t and now he has taken her away. I hate God!”

How is one’s faith tested when we older people see our own children and the youth leaving the Church, maybe getting bored, maybe just uninterested, maybe being converted to another, possibly a more active, way of relating to God?

What helps me often is the statement: “We are not called to be successful, just to be faithful.” That doesn’t mean we can sit back and be faithful passively, but doing what we can while remembering that it is God’s work, not ours. Our task is to work with God and allow God to work in us and through us.

Another statement that intrigued me was the headline in the Redemptorists’ Catholic Link the week after Easter. “Touch My Wounds” it said. That, for me, was a new angle on the Thomas story. Why did he need to touch the wounds? What effect does touching another’s wounds have?

Mother Teresa’s ministry of physical care for the poor brought her into contact with Jesus. But as the little reflection in the Catholic Link noted, our own ministry to those in need right where we are does so too. A sick child, an ageing parent, a troubled teenager or an anxious neighbour need our touch.

As a grandparent I am conscious of one these aspects, the troubled teenager (note: not troublesome teenager). In family ministry we find the parents hurting, having difficulty with their teenagers, but there is a bigger picture. It is not even teenagers also hurting and having trouble with their parents, but teenagers having trouble with their own developing selves, their wants, needs, feelings and confusions.

Irrespective of what our particular church affiliation is, can they and their parents really touch one another’s wounds, can they listen and hear the pain without judging who is right or wrong?

And can this listening, this selfless act of love, as the reflection says, lead to faith, to forgiveness and healing, to resurrection. Can it be God working in us and through us leading us to faith, to a response to a God who is love?

The family life theme for April is “Me, God and My Family”. Individuals have their personal relationship with God and that is good. But praying privately to God for a hurt to be healed without the chance to share that hurt in an accepting and caring family atmosphere is only half the job.

Prayer leads to action. My prayer this month is for openness in families to God and his work which is our work of building strong, loving, God-inspired families, whatever kind of family it is.

My hope is that parishes will take these themes seriously and build them into bidding prayers at Mass on Sundays. In that way the parish too can touch it’s family’s wounds while facilitating God’s work.