What To Pray For

I’ve only been putting down words in this blog format for a few months, but already it seems some have forgotten why. I received a comment asking why I print words of others versus my own meanderings of mind. The words of others are not as simple to understand. (Let me tell you truthfully, I have had many men much wiser than I tell me they could not understand MY words.) The simple answer to the question posed, however, is that the words of others and mine are no different, at least to me.

Sometimes in my reading, or praying, or sometimes just in the quiet, “the light bulb goes on”, and I see clearly something which seemed vague or unimportant before. Surely you’ve had similar insights – suddenly, you understand something. I’ve mentioned before that the one thing I routinely pray for is Wisdom, both because I have so little of it for a start, and because I believe it to be the ultimate destination of my earthly journey – why I’m even here. I’m here to gain Wisdom. I pray to God for Wisdom because he IS Wisdom; he IS Truth. I want to know the truth, about everything.

I read the works of the great philosophers because they are also searchers for the truth. The saints were also. Sometimes it seems to me that God provides me some small smattering of truth, of wisdom, and I share it with you, even though I realize that my searching and the paths I take to find the truth may make my discoveries difficult for you to understand as I do – you are on a different path with your life, than I with mine. But we are both seeking the same destination, and so whatever I believe helps me may, perhaps, help you. I do care about you.

And so it shouldn’t really be something strange for you to understand that there are many others who have taken, and are taking even now, the journey we are on. The journey of life. While I appreciate God’s insights given to me, I recognize that he has given Wisdom to many others also and they, like I, have often written it down. While much of what they wrote is of little benefit to me, for the reasons I gave earlier, some things resonate as Truth with me as much as any Wisdom given me directly. So I share with you both what I perceive to be the most insightful words of others and my own pitiful thoughts.

I pray the Wisdom I am given, and find, will help us both have food for the journey.

And with that preface, I’ll share with you now some words I found in today’s readings on prayer. They seem to say an awful lot in a few words, and with some meditation on them I felt that I found yet another snippet of Truth, which I hope I can retain -- and share.


Power shines forth more perfectly in weakness. These words were written to prevent us from having too great an opinion of ourselves if our prayer is granted, when we are impatient in asking for something that it would be better not to receive; and to prevent us from being dejected, and distrustful of God’s mercy toward us, if our prayer is not granted, when we ask for something that would bring us greater affliction, or completely ruin us through the corrupting influence of prosperity. In these cases we do not know what it is right to ask for in prayer.

Therefore, if something happens that we did not pray for, we must have no doubt at all that what God wants is more expedient than what we wanted ourselves.
From a letter to Proba by Saint Augustine, bishop