Prayer Before Making Decisions

Reading: One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. Luke 6:12.
 
Good morning, happy Tuesday, and many blessings my dear family.
 
Today’s Gospel (Luke 6:12-19) begins with Jesus going up the mountain to pray. Jesus spent the whole night in prayer. It is immediately after this time of deep solitude and prayer that he called the twelve apostles. It is at this point Jesus began to preach, to teach, and to heal.

This passage shows how Jesus spent time in prayer before making big decisions – in this instance, before choosing the twelve apostles. These twelve had responded positively to his message. In this passage, before a large crowd, we can see the two aspects of Jesus' ministry: preaching and healing. How can I make time to listen to what God is saying directly to me? God will also call me by my name. Can I respond in the way the disciples did?
 
The word about Jesus must have already spread. The people of the area must have known that there was something very unusual about this man.  As Jesus came down the mountain, immediately he was surrounded by a great number of people from Judea, Tyre, Sidon, and Jerusalem.
 
What was it that drew these people to Jesus? How had the word spread so quickly? In Jesus’ time there was no internet by which the word could be spread worldwide almost instantaneously. Yet, somehow the word about Jesus had spread far and wide! What were the stories these people heard about this itinerant preacher, Jesus? Or had they heard him preach and wanted to hear more from him?
 
The people wanted more than to just hear Jesus preach. In the Gospel Luke says: “Everyone was trying to touch him.” The people had heard that great power flowed out from Jesus. They had heard that he had the power to heal. They too had come wanting to be touched and healed by Jesus. What a gift that would be!
 
How do I know I am praying well? What matters is not so much what we feel, or even what happens, during our prayer, but rather what happens when we are not praying. “By their fruits you will know them” (Lk 6:44). Is our prayer time bearing good fruits in our lives? Are we gradually becoming more peaceful, more loving? Are we growing stronger in our areas of weakness? Are we able to keep things in better perspective? Are we more aware of God’s Presence in our lives when we are not praying? If so, we are praying well. If not, we need to ask whether we are devoting sufficient time and energy to prayer each day. Are we praying? If we are, but our prayer is not gradually producing good spiritual fruit in our lives, then we need to shake up our prayer lives, experiment, try new methods of prayer. The kind of prayer that may have served us effectively during one stage of our life, might no longer be right for us. God may be calling us deeper, to a different form of communion.
 
Our invitation is to grow in our prayer life, to grow in our communion with God.
 
Blessings,
 
Luis+