We Already Know the Answer

Jesus went around to all the towns and villages.

Teaching, healing and spreading the Good News.

Then he said to his disciples,

The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few;so ask the master of the harvestto send out laborers for his harvest.

He’s telling them to pray to God to send out more laborers.

How does that jive with his instructions when they once asked him to teach them to pray?

Then he said, Don’t babble on; God already knows what you need.

And he taught them the Our Father.

God does indeed already know what we need.

So why ask him?

Well, for one thing, putting our request into words helps us.

When we work at forming the request we better understand our need.

And talking to God about it helps us to put it in perspective.

Ideally, through our continued prayer and request and reflection and listening,

We rise to the level of spirit that Jesus taught us in the Our Father.

A level where we can conform our request to God’s will and honestly say – Thy will be done.

Surely, Jesus’ faithful disciples listened to him.

And when he told them to ask God to send out laborers, surely they did just that.

They probably prayed that very day.

They probably prayed extra hard—please God, send out laborers.

And God answered their prayer.

He already knew what was needed.

But their praying helped prepare them for the answer they got.

Helped them to conform themselves to His will.

We all know that we still need more laborers today.

So, we still need to pray that God will send out more people to carry the Good News to the world.

Of course, God already knows that we still need more laborers.

And he will answer our prayer.

But our praying will help us hear His answer.

Help us conform to His will.

And act on His answer.

Actually, we already know His answer.

But our prayer can help us listen more, and understand more, and conform more.

It’s the same answer he gave those faithful disciples 2000 years ago.

The faithful disciples prayed for God to send out more laborers.

And He did.

He sent them.

Tuesday, 14th Week of  Ordinary Time

Mt 9:32-38          Read this Scripture @usccb.org